Forward
by Peptuck
Summary: Following the Miranda broadwave, there's only one direction for Malcolm Reynolds and his crew to go. Part Nine: Wrath: Cornered on Persephone, River faces both the dark products of the Academy, and her own inner demons. Post-BDM, Series.
1. Business: Prologue: Clean Fun

**_Disclaimer:_** I don't own Firefly or its characters. I just play in the sandbox. Joss, boss, etc.

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**_Author's Note: _**This is part of a planned series of fics revolving around a speculative "Season Two" of Firefly. "Forward" is the overarching title of the entire series, with individual story arcs making up the "episodes" of the series, with a few possible one-shots scattered throughout. This takes place post-Big Damn Movie, and there is very mild AU here regarding the movie, which will become apparent as the prologue progresses.

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_**Forward**_

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_**Part One: Unfinished Business**_

_**Prologue: Clean Fun**_

Not exactly being the artistic type, he didn't really look too much into things like coloration and shading, not like some of his crew. Even so, some tiny bit of Malcolm Reynolds' mind was able to appreciate the way the dim, scattered light hit the imbedded blue and white paint of the bottle a heartbeat before the airborne glass smacked into his face.

He stumbled, spinning and dropping to one knee even as his hand snatched up a metal tray off the bar beside him. There were yells, the shattering of wood, and the meaty impact of one of Jayne Cobb's ham-hands meeting another unfortunate bastard's stomach.

"Another day, another tussle," he muttered as he rose, his sentence punctuated by the ring of his new weapon slamming into another man's jaw. He rose, the chaos swirling around him, and his experienced bar-fighting instincts picked out a bit of movement a bit too close to his backside. A duck kept Mal's head beneath an otherwise painful sucker-punch, and his new best friend the drink tray caught its victim full across the face.

Mal turned to Jayne, just to make sure the burly man wasn't in too much trouble. An instant's glance showed he had both hands, both elbows, one leg, and his forehead engaged in different aspects of rendering inebriated gentlemen unconscious, and Mal whipped back around. His tray met another bottle, and the glass obligingly shattered against the metal plate. A quick thrust with one hand snapped the side of the tray into the attacker's face, and the metal rang like a gong as the man toppled back to the floor.

Said floor was getting choked with a mixture of unconscious folk and bits of broken furniture, but that didn't diminish anyone's enthusiasm for the traditional form of bar-going recreation.

"Enjoyin' yourself, Cap?" called the sweet sunshine voice from across the room, in the only part of the bar that wasn't being happily torn to shreds. Mal blocked another blow, this time a closed-fist punch, and the hand's owner recoiled, cradling his smarting limb for the half-second it took Mal to smash the tray over his head.

"Good exercise," the Captain replied, glancing Kaylee's way as she reclined in the booth, head leaning a little bit on the shoulder of Doctor Simon Tam, who was doing his level best to be as inconspicuous as possible. Both of them continued to take measured sips of their drinks as Jayne rampaged across the bar and Mal _toonked_ his way toward his comrade's side.

It had been going pretty well, a relatively quiet drink over a relatively quiet game of checkers between Mal and the Doctor in the corner while Kaylee watched and Jayne got up to fetch some drinks. The next thing they knew, certain heated words were exchanged over the orange eye-bleeding headwear the wreathed Jayne's head, followed by certain fists, and then certain improvised weapons. Mal took that moment to intervene, as even Jayne couldn't handle half the bar on his own, and now the two were in the thick of it. Thankfully, half the bar was addressing their grievances with one another, affording the pair some breathing room while they sorted the mess out.

Simon watched the chaos with detached amusement. In the past, such things might have bothered him, but between his rough-and-tumble experiences with this crew, the alcohol, and Kaylee's presence, he felt about at ease as he could get.

"Every time we go for a nice quiet drink," he remarked, and then winced as he heard a skull crack. A man went flying over the bar, followed by the tinkles of assorted broken glasses and bottles. He peered down at his mug, to see it almost empty, and with a sigh he threw back the last of the beer.

"Well, I know I'll have something useful to do when we get back home," he added as the liquid burned down his throat. "No doubt a lot of bruises, possible lacerations, and I'll expect some concussions or fractures too."

"Oh, Cap and Jayne are gonna be fine," Kaylee replied, and grinned as Jayne caught a man by the neck and hefted him with one arm, before flinging him into a gaggle of other patrons. She tapped Simon on the chest. "'Sides, I had plans for when we all got back on Serenity."

"Need some _help_ tuning up the engine?" Simon asked, with just enough emphasis to make the mechanic's grin widen.

"You're gettin' to be a good hand with some tools, you know," she replied, and then her eyes widened as her hand gripped his chest tighter through his shirt. She pulled and ducked, and Simon followed suit, out of simple experience with these sorts of things. A glass bottle shattered against the wall overhead, but most of the shards toppled down behind their booth's seating.

"Well, ah," he replied, picking some bits and pieces of glass off his shirt a moment later. "Nowadays I _can_ tell the difference between a bolt and a - hold on." He started picking through Kaylee's hair, where little blue slivers of glass had come to rest.

"I got some in me?" she asked unnecessarily, and he nodded, fingers picking through her brown strands with deft precision. Elsewhere, a man yelped in agony before diving face-first through a table, courtesy of Jayne.

"Yeah, just hold still a moment so I can get it all out," Simon said, careful to grip the tiny shards as delicately as possible. Didn't want to cut himself.

"Didn't think doctorin' required bein' so good at picking through a girl's hair," Kaylee said, only moving to pick up her mug and continue watching the brawl. She couldn't see Mal, but the constant _toonking_ of his pilfered tray showed he was still actively part of the insanity.

"Nothing much to do with being a surgeon, really," Simon replied, grabbing the last bits he could find. "I've got more practical experience, mostly in the form of chewing gum and River."

Kaylee giggled, and then caught sight of three men bulling into Jayne, pushing him back against the wall nearest their booth. They started punching on him, even as Jayne retaliated back, knocking one away with a cracked jaw.

"Doc, quit playin' with the-" Jayne's yell was cut off by a fist to the jaw, and he snapped his head forward, meeting another attacker forehead to forehead. Jayne's thick skull won out in the exchange, and the other man was launched off his feet. With only one foe troubling him, the big man grabbed his new victim by the shoulders and spun, smashing the smaller man into the wall. He glanced at the pair as they watched, and then snorted, before turning back toward the battle.

"You two just gonna play hip-buddies and watch all night?" he asked, and Kaylee shrugged.

"You and the Captain seem to be doin' alright by my account," she explained, and Jayne nodded, straightening his cunning hat and grabbing an empty bottle. He swung the weapon straight into the face of another unfortunate standing patron, and the glass shattered on impact. Discarding the broken glass, Jayne waded back into the brawl without another word.

"Good, clean fun," Kaylee remarked, watching the fight continue to rage, and Simon simply nodded, hoping he wouldn't need to treat anything like the wounds Mal and Jayne were inflicting.

* * *

The cargo ramp welcomed the quartet as they alternately walked and limped back into their home. The bay interior was marked with scattered crates and boxes, some of it legitimate cargo picked up on this leg, some simply supplies. The real money-makers were in their usual spots behind the bulkheads. 

"Both of you should go to the med lab when you've gotten some rest," Simon explained. "I want to make sure you didn't suffer any serious fractures." Mal nodded, while Jayne sneered slightly, muttering about "bein' fine, was just a table leg."

"Take it the locals weren't welcoming?" called a voice from the catwalks above, and Mal looked up, nodding to Zoe Washburne as she came down the steps, brown hair hanging loose and casual.

"They had some objections to our uncivilized ways," Mal replied, and gestured toward Jayne with his head. "Seems some of them felt Jayne's hat was a bit too cunning for their tastes."

"They was crowdin' me anyway," Jayne replied, and fiddled with his hat. "Ya'll know I'm impartial to crowdin'."

"That's not the proper meaning for impartial," Simon remarked, and Jayne frowned at him.

"You a doctor or a schoolteacher?" he snapped, and then pushed past the doctor, heading for the stairs.

"Think he's a bit off that we just watched and didn't help out?" Kaylee asked, and Mal shook his head, then patted the mechanic on the head.

"Doc needs to keep out of the fightin' with his job, and last thing I'd want is to see _you_ mixin' it up like we were," he said, and then nodded toward Zoe. "We get the pickup?"

"Certain disreputable fellows came on time and dropped it off," she replied, nodding across the room. "Legal portions are already tied down. Less than that is holed up in the bulkheads."

"Well, then," Mal said with a nod, and walked toward the cargo bay controls. Mal closed the doors, hearing the familiar reassuring hiss of the bay locking itself up tight, and headed toward the stairs. "Let's get in the air. Got a powerful need to eat somethin' after dropping a good thirty folk on the floor of that fine establish-"

Black hair tangled up in his face without warning, and the captain flubbed for a second before taking a step back. A mischievous smile greeted him as he stared up, the girl hanging by her knees from the central catwalk platform directly overhead.

"Darlin', aren't you supposed to be helpin' our pilot get in the air?" he asked. River Tam giggled.

"Took care of navigation already," the girl explained. "Wash flies, doesn't need to think and line up the numbers."

"Don't usually accuse him of much thinkin' anyway," Mal replied, stepping around the whimsical little girl's hanging hair. "How long's our run gonna be?

"Two days," she estimated. Her eyes rolled "up" which meant they were staring at his boots. "Well, not exactly. Forty three hours and nineteen minutes, hard burn."

"No rush to get anywhere, little albatross," Mal replied as he made his way toward the stairs. "Take it nice and easy." She watched him walk past, and he felt as if her eyes were lingering on him for a second.

"You broke your face," she commented, and Mal laughed.

"Shoulda seen the other guys," he replied.

Mal passed through the mess a moment later, the scent of the cooking protein mix making his stomach growl. There was a certain amount of spice to it that got his tongue watering. The Shepard knew his trade, and he'd forgotten how pleasant it had been to have him aboard, something that the last month had reminded him of all too well.

"Good afternoon, Captain," Book said with a smile, which quickly shifted to a thoughtful frown as Mal strode past.

"Awful nice concoction I'm smelling there," Mal offered, pausing by the counter and taking a whiff.

"I certainly expect you to be hungry," Book replied. "I suppose you worked up an appetite, destroying a fine drinking establishment."

"Honest brawl between tipsy sorts, is all," Mal replied with a grin, and the Shepard nodded.

"I honestly hope no one was seriously hurt," he added, and Mal waved a hand reassuringly as he headed out.

"Jayne probably got the worst of it, I suspect," he said. "Broke a table leg _right _across his back. Would have been better if they'd hit him on his head or such. Nothing to, you know, damage up there." Book chuckled at the mild joke as Mal disappeared down the crew corridor.

He heard a familiar trio of clicking switches as he stepped into the bridge, and opened his mouth to ask the usual question.

"Ready to lift?" he asked, and there as a grunt from the pilot's chair.

"Course is set, all systems are shiny," Wash replied, setting about the process of getting the ship ready for launch. "River already took care of our navigation; you sure she's not a machine or something, a robot sent back from the future?" He swiveled about in his chair as he spoke. "I saw a movie about that once - _oh." _A frown appeared on his face as he scruitized his brutalized Captain.

"Captain, you have this big red _thing_," he said, pointing at his right eye. "Just about . . . oh, wait, is that your _eye_?"

"Why's everyone making such a big fuss over this?" Mal asked, crossing his arms. "Just some clean fist-fightin'."

"Not that, its just," Wash paused, looked down at the floor, and then leaned forward, his face hardening up into dead seriousness. "Captain, there's something real important I think you need to know. A concern of mine."

"What is it?" Mal asked, suddenly worried. If _Wash_ of all people was getting serious . . . .

"I am very, very worried about the state of our affairs," he said, clutching his hands together tightly. "Because we just can't run a proper business without a _very pretty _captain."

I took Mal only a second to bounce off the deadpan.

"Well, I'll talk with Zoe about that," he replied. "I could use a vacation from all this 'command' responsibility."

"Hey, better cut for me, husband's benefits and all!" Wash replied, spinning back around.

"Chow's in ten," Mal added as the ship's engines began to fire.

"Hope its edible tonight," Wash called back as Mal stepped out of the bridge.

"Doctor's not cooking," Mal replied. "Might want to hurry, though. Me an' Jayne gotta powerful hunger after all that workout. Might end up eating the table."

"I _shudder_ to imagine," Wash said as he took _Serenity_ into the sky.

* * *

The office was dark, quiet, and _reeked_ of danger. Not directed danger, but simply a scent of imminent peril for whomever walked inside. It had been that way for several months, ever since the _raid_, and while the man inside had survived that attack without permanent injury, the massive blow to his pride had left scars, both mental ones on his ego and physical ones on the surviving minions he took his rage out on. 

Though he kept it under control enough to handle his business, no one would be fool enough to deny that he was rapidly slipping into obsession. After all, none had chosen to defy him in such a blatant manner. Even the _Alliance_ afforded him some respect, due to the money and influence he wielded. But these people . . . they had _humiliated_ him.

He kept watching the videos from the battle over and over and over. He had memorized their faces, their voices, their movements and actions as they battled past his troops. The woman soldier with the steel spine, the goofy-looking pilot who had screamed so much, the burly, cold and controlled mercenary. The man in shepard's cloth, alongside the young man who couldn't aim to save his life, and the frightened brown-haired girl in mechanic's overalls. And the _Captain_. He would never forget that man. He had seen them all on his cameras, had recorded their faces in his mind, and he fantasized over his vengeance.

He could hear their screams now, taste the blood in the air, their delicious pain and agony.

The door to his office slid open, and he looked up, momentarily considering torturing the man to death for the intrusion, but dismissed the thought. It was his new second-in-command, a slim little fellow named Volsky.

"Sir, I apologize for the intrusion," he said, standing at attention before his desk, his voice wreathed in a thick Russian accent. With a nod, the man behind the desk indicated that Volsky should continue.

"One of our contacts on Beaumonde just got in touch with us," he continued. "We've tracked down _Serenity_, and have its destination, cargo, buyers, and estimated travel time."

For the first time in several months, the man behind the desk gave an honest smile, and he sat up straight.

"Do we have teams ready?"

"They're heading for Triumph, sir. We can get a strike team in position just before they land, if we move immediately."

"Then go, quickly!" he said, laughing, his happiness finally returning at the prospect of getting his well-deserved revenge on _Serenity_. Volsky bowed and quickly departed, leaving his boss to play the videos again, now savoring the chance to hurt them all.

Which one would he start with, he wondered? Who would pay first for crossing him? So many _choices _. . . .

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**_Author's Notes:_** This prologue was pretty much intended to establish the setting for the fic. I wrote it partially as an experiment with writing Firefly dialogue, and it was actually written before "One Gorram Reason" was written. Once I got done with this chapter, I _knew_ I was going to have fun writing all these characters. 

As you can tell, Book and Wash are both alive and apparently survived the Big Damn Movie. I did this partially because when I originally wrote this prologue (and some of the subsequent chapters) that it was missing "something." It wasn't until I included Wash and Book that things started to feel "right" again, and since they're as much a part of Firefly as any of the BDM survivors, I wanted to include them. Plus, Wash and Book rock _hard_. One is a JRPG-haired priest who can peg you in the leg with a rifle one-handed at the perfect time to make you smack your head on the still-smoking remains of a destroyed ATV, and the other wears _Hawaiian shirts_. And they're just _fun_ characters, so **_nya_**, they're alive for this story. How they survived and what they did for the rest of the movie's events may be eleaborated upon later.

Don't let the prologue fool you; though this series is definitely going to have its light-hearted arcs and events, the "Unfinished Business" arc is going to be a little bit dark, on the same level as "Bushwhacked" or possibly even the Big Damn Movie. Also, expect River to be a central character for more than half of the "episodes" of this series; she's easily my favorite character, and she's such a versitale walking plot device that I can't _help_ but play with her.

Next chapter may be a bit slow, but trust me, the action in this particular arc will pick up _quick._ Updates may be sporadic, as I'll be taking a lot of care with each chapter I'm writing to ensure I put out the best work I can. Let me know what you think!

Until first chapter . . . .


	2. Chapter One: Home

_**Chapter One: Home**_

"So, straighten me out here," Jayne said the next "morning" as he spooned a mountain of protein into his bowl from the oversized pot. "We're smugglin' _liquid diamonds _is what Mal said last night?"

On the other side of the mess, Zoe nodded as she ate at a slightly more modest bowl.

"Nano-carbide fluid," she replied. "Part of the manufacturing process for any kind of power tool. Few molecular layers of it goes on the edge of any cutting tool like a saw or blade. Shapes itself out to give the tool a diamond edge." Jayne grunted as he plopped down in his chair.

"So, why are we smuggling it?" Wash asked, sitting beside Zoe. "Industrial ingredients aren't exactly illegal. Well, not _that_ kind anyway."

"Its not," Malcolm Reynolds called from the crew hallway, walking into the mess. "Or least, it wasn't until we pricked the Alliance's paw."

"The Miranda broadwave got the Alliance jittery," Zoe explained after taking a bite from a piece of bread. "They're scared with all the unrest cropping up on the border moons that they're going to see a second Unification War explode." Jayne snorted.

"Fat chance a bunch of back-planet yokels are gonna slap together anything like what the Independents built," he muttered, before assaulting his breakfast.

"Alliance don't agree," Mal explained as he dug up his own bowl. "Prospect of another bunch of Independents rising up is scaring their pants yellow, with all the chaos the broadwave is causing in the core. So, being as wise and mighty as only the Alliance can be, they're restricting materials they deem 'necessary to the establishment of a wartime-capable infrastructure'."

"By cuttin' off people's access to power tools?" Jayne asked, not understanding. They could hear movement toward the rear of the mess, coming from the engine room, followed by laughter.

"Well, I for one have this mental image," Wash said, poking at his meal, "of Mal and my Zoe running around wearing tribal warrior masks and waving _chainsaws_, and it is easily the most terrifying image I can conjure. So, if the Alliance wants to prevent that from ever coming to pass, I'm all for it." Grins and chuckles surrounded the table.

"Well, they want to slow the manufacture of power tools, at least," Zoe added. "Keeps colonists from building up past basic industry, which can be converted to building weapons and munitions." She glanced down the rear hallway, to see Kaylee and Simon walking up the passage; apparently, neither of them had gone back to their bunks during the night cycle.

"Mornin'," Mal called, raising his cup of coffee in greeting.

"Morning, Cap," Kaylee replied, and Simon echoed her a heartbeat later.

"Half the cargo is sittin' out in the open though," Jayne remarked as he finished swallowing. Kaylee and Simon made their way into the little kitchen, toward the pot of steaming protein, only giving half an ear to the conversation.

"That half ain't contraband," Mal replied, sitting as well. "Got a nice, pretty, legitimate shipping contract for nano-carbide fluid, courtesy of our favorite pair of identical snakes. We don't have any _real _contraband on board, its just that we're carrying more cargo than the feds would be comfortable knowin'."

"Fanty an' Mingo lined us up somethin' _legit_imate?" Jayne asked, not sure what to say to that.

"You forget the part where we're carrying twice what we're supposed to," Zoe pointed out. "The twins agreed to set it up for us, half now, half on delivery."

"Naturally, they got the 'now' part of the bargain," Wash added. "Plus side, we won't need to meet with them again when the job's done."

"Shiny by me," Jayne muttered. None of them were too keen on dealing with either of the twins again anytime soon, not after the payroll debacle. Simon and Kaylee wandered over to the table, faces partially obscured by steam rising from their protein bowls.

"Hope you two managed to get _some _maintenance done last night," Mal remarked, and Kaylee giggled.

"Parts are all greased up, Cap," she replied, and Jayne choked amidst raised eyebrows.

"I certainly hope so," Mal replied, and took another bite of his breakfast.

"My mind is conjuring images only appropriate for myself and Zoe," Wash added, mock horror on his face. She elbowed him in response.

"Save them for our bunk," she muttered, and he smiled apologetically.

A faint tinkle of metal on metal from the counter drew Mal's attention, and he nearly jumped to see River leaning over the cooking plate, spooning her breakfast out. No one had seen or heard her come in.

"Mornin', albatross," Mal said, and she looked up, giving them a smile as she glided around the counter. "We on course?"

"Too early for flying the wrong way," she said, which Mal assumed was an affirmative. She sat down and began to eat.

"As far as I'm aware, we're still vaguely flying in the general direction of Triumph," Wash added.

"Girl's never gonna give us a straight answer, anyway," Jayne muttered, and she looked up, staring at the gigantic mercenary with that oddly blank and piercing gaze of hers.

"Road's crooked. Even in space, its all twisted and jumbled," she said, looking away from him, past where Mal sat at the head of the table. Before Jayne could make another remark, her eyes focused, narrowing. "Point zero zero three nine chance of error in flight path on current autopilot settings." She turned her eyes back to Jayne, and smiled again. "More accurate than Vera."

Jayne went back to eating, muttering something about "_gorram_ moonbrained girl" under his breath.

"You feelin' alright this mornin', River?" Kaylee asked, and she nodded, spooning aimlessly at her bowl.

"More clarity than I'm used to," she replied.

"Got another thirty-odd hours to Triumph, either way," Mal added. "Still, faster than e used to be."

"Upgrades that they wrangled onto the engine are workin' good," Kaylee added. "_Serenity's_ runnin' smoother than I've ever seen her in years."

"Get our slightly oversized cargo to those who need it quick enough," Zoe added.

"Band-aids," River said, and then took another hesitant bite of her breakfast. "They put band-aids over the problem and hope it'll plug up leaky holes." It took a few moments for anyone to divine her meaning, before Simon nodded.

"River's right," he said, drawing a curious look from Jayne. "Denying the colonists tools to limit their infrastructure isn't going to help in the long run. It'll just increase hostility."

"Never credited the Alliance with an overabundance of brains," Mal remarked. "Them denyin' folks their due is just openin' doors for . . . Mornin', 'Nara." The others looked up from their meals to see Inara glide into the room, the Companion directing smiles all around. Even River perked up, despite her distraction.

"Good morning, everyone," she said, walking toward the pot of protein. She sniffed it, and then seemed to consider the mixture for a moment. "Is this cinnamon and honey?"

"Zoe's idea," Jayne grunted. "Got a good haul of spices and like from Beaumonde."

"Kaylee and Book picked them out," Zoe replied. "I just figured they'd make a decent breakfast mix."

"Certainly different," Inara added, spooning a bowl for herself. "Good to have _real_ food for once."

"Last job paid decent," Mal added as she sat down with the rest of the crew. He'd really stopped thinking of any of them as being _not_ part of the crew, especially after the extreme close call at Haven. "Figured we'd enjoy the fruits of our petty theivin' while we could."

"What did you splurge on?" Inara asked, and he shook his head.

"Don't splurge, 'cept on my boat," he replied. "Heard the Doc got Kaylee something frilly, though."

"First _I_ heard," Jayne said, and Kaylee grinned.

"And you'll _only _be hearin' of it, Jayne Cobb," she replied, with a playful tone of voice that left some heavy implications as to what the frilly something _was_.

"Sorry I'm late, everyone," called Shepard Book as he entered the mess. He looked embarrassed, and was still tying his hair back. "I appear to have slept in."

"Perfectly fine, Shepard," Mal replied with a smile. "Zoe took care of breakfast."

"Sloth doesn't become me, however," he answered with a smile and began making his own bowl. "So, I hear we have some _legitimate_ business this time around."

"Legitimate enough," Zoe answered.

"Alliance is grinding its heel into border moon folk," Mal added. "We're just lessenin' the weight."

"And getting more than our fair share," Kaylee piped in, as the Shepard sat down.

"There's going to be less violence this time around than the last job, I hope," Book asked, and Mal smiled.

"Just a simple smuggling run with completely reputable buyers," he explained. "I highly doubt we'll be dealing with fellows like the Charlain brothers this time."

"Don't matter much," Jayne cut in. "I'm takin' Vera with me on the mule this run, for certain."

"No," Mal replied firmly. "Last thing we need is you toting a Callahan around. It'll spook our buyers. We're making a sale, not invading the moon."

"Why? Gotta show 'em we mean business. Might just give us a better cut-"

"You just installed a _grenade launcher _on that monster, Jayne," Zoe replied.

"Well, consider me paranoid," Jayne said.

"Already do," Wash bounced. The mercenary sneered and continued.

"Everytime Mal says the job is gonna go well, it goes south," he pointed out. "Charlain brothers sprung seven men, sharpshooters, and _gorram_ air support on us for that load of foodstuffs. Payroll job Fanty and Mingo sent us on ended with a skiff o' Reavers chasin' us. Both were milk runs, 'ccording to the Captain."

"Well, this one is going to go easy," Mal replied.

"Why you so certain?" Jayne asked, and Mal faltered.

"Well . . . because," he replied, and Jayne grinned, knowing he'd gotten the upper hand. After a second, Mal pointed at Jayne, reasserting his command.

"You take Vera, but you keep her stowed on the mule, understood?"

"Grenades?" Jayne asked, his voice hopeful, and Mal frowned, before glancing around the table. Last time he'd said no to grenades . . . .

"No more than you've got hands. Any case, I expect that this job will go well. We'll have a comfortable pile of money to rest on come delivery," Mal continued. "Hopefully we'll _finally_ get some relaxin' time."

* * *

The morning passed without incident; the closest thing to anything interesting was a brief round of accusations over breakfast regarding the origins of a particular odor, before Inara figured out one of the refrigerator units had gone out, and much lamentation was had by the crew over the loss of some greenery they'd bought the previous day. The rest of the day was spent completing various chores and duties, some quietly, others loudly and with much announcement. 

"Don't be whinin', Jayne, we've got more jobs last month than we had for half of last year! Weren't you complain' 'bout such a couple of months back?"

"Just sayin', Mal's runnin' us a bit ragged after gettin' the ship fixed up," Jayne's voice echoed around the small staircase as he and Kaylee descended toward the common rooms downstairs. "Which is somethin' I'm not too partial toward. I still got holes ain't been sealed up all the way since that Reaver fight, and its been a gorram month!"

"You ain't bleedin', are ya?" Kaylee replied, looking back up at him with one of her inarguable smiles as they came out into the common area, her hair bouncing in time with her steps.

"Still got bits showin' in my skin, and last job got some fresher ones crowdin' for space," the burly man shot back; it would take more than a smile from Kaylee to deflate him when he was in a bitching mood. As he complained, Kaylee veered off, spotting Simon paging through a medical journal while lounging on one of the couches.

"He_llo_," she crooned, leaning over the book and kissing him on his nose. He reached up, laughing at the suddenly pleasant intrusion, and pulled her down to reply. Jayne watched for a minute as they kissed and whispered silly nothings back and forth, and sneered.

"Ya'll do so much face-suckin' its a wonder we ever get work done around here," he remarked, and stepped past. "Get done quick, got cargo to be checkin'. That mule needs some lookin' after, too."

"Ignore him," Kaylee whispered, and Simon grinned.

"That's one acquired skill I've picked up," he answered. "So, what's wrong with the mule?"

"Grav drive, as usual," Kaylee replied, straddling the doctor's lap. "Finally got enough parts so's it can use all five seats and still carry cargo." She kissed him again, and they kept that up for a while, both their work forgotten until Jayne's yelling echoed back down past the infirmary. With a sigh, she broke off, threading a hand through Simon's hair.

"Work's never done," she muttered, climbing up.

"You're right," Simon said, standing as well. "I should look after River, see how she's doing."

"Any new medications for her yet?" Kaylee asked as they walked toward the cargo bay, neither of them really doing so consciously.

"I'm hoping to cut back on her dosages, actually," he replied. "She's more lucid now, but still erratic. I think flying the ship gives her an outlet to use her mind and that's helping calm her down."

"Not sure yet, though," Kaylee asked, and he shrugged.

"I really don't know," he admitted as they passed the infirmary. He glanced inside, and continued on, his gaze lingering over all the medical equipment and racks of medicine. "Nine months of observation, and she still surprises me. They didn't cover therapy for years of chemical and physical brain trauma on a developing girl in med school. And there's certainly nothing in the medical texts about dealing with psychics."

"You'll figure somethin' out," Kaylee replied as they passed into the cargo hold, and she kissed him again. With that, Kaylee broke away and headed for the stairs, climbing up to where the mule was docked. Simon watched her depart for a moment, his eyes lingering on parts of her body that he already knew well enough, and finally he turned to leave.

"Ruinin' a perfectly good mechanic," Jayne grunted from behind some crates, and his head poked up. Simon glanced at him, and took a breath.

"I'm certainly quite sorrowful I don't have _your_ approval," he replied, and the burly man sneered, before disappearing back behind the boxes.

"Girl only cared 'bout keepin' the ship flyin' before you got here," he muttered from out of view. "Now we're lucky she can spot a hull breach all these hormones flyin' around." Simon came to a halt and looked back at where Jayne was working.

"What?"

"Huh?" Jayne looked up over the crates again.

"You said 'hormones'?" Simon's eyebrows were raised in disbelief.

"So?"

"I never thought that you even understood what those were," Simon said, and Jayne sneered again.

"They'll be what's gonna make me break your jaw if you don't quit buggin' me," he growled.

"I'm not," Simon said, stopping. "You were . . . forget it." He stepped out of the bay, leaving Jayne to his work.

"Wish I could forget _you_." Jayne found it rare to get the upper hand on the Doc in any verbal sparring, so he took what parting shots he could.

* * *

"Thought you'd be put off that we're going so far out of your usual area of business," Zoe remarked as she walked over the cargo bay, faintly hearing Jayne and Simon trade barbs below. Beside her, Inara smiled. 

"Triumph isn't exactly the place where I'd usually look for clients, I agree," she replied. "But I'm not in any hurry to get immersed in my work again."

"Relaxing, just like the Captain?" Zoe asked, and the Companion laughed.

"All the time I've worked with him, I don't think Mal _ever_ really relaxes," she mused, pausing over the bay. She waved to Kaylee as she spotted the mechanic clambering onto the mule. "He says he enjoys taking his time, and he always complains when things get hectic, but I've never seen him more in his element than when everything goes upside down all around him."

"The truth, more or less," Zoe said with a nod. "You know, he was like that during the war. Made sergeant because he always had energy. Even when everything was going wrong he was always there in the thick of the fighting, keeping the troops rallied. Saved all our bacon more times than I can count."

"Is that why you stayed with him?" the Companion asked, and Zoe nodded.

"Mal has his way," she said, thinking and staring off past the bulkheads. After a few seconds, she returned to reality, and turned back toward Inara. "So, you never told me why you opted to stay on board." Inara shrugged.

"Can't say," she replied. She mulled over it for a moment. "Honestly, I know why I left, and I had my reasons for it, but they went out the window when he walked into the temple to save me." She shook her head. "For such a petty, malignant criminal, he is far too noble for this line of work."

"Like I said," Zoe repeated. "Mal has his way. Always had."

* * *

The quiet thrum of the bridge hung in the air, a blanket of dim noise that let Wash drift along. He wasn't sleeping, because falling asleep meant endangering the crew if he was inattentive at the wheel, but he'd developed a light doze that let him while away the hours at the helm while keeping himself fresh and alert. 

The rustle of paper across the bridge drew a moment's glance from Wash as he ducked out of his doze, and he saw River in the copilot's chair, reading a book. The girl shifted her gaze every minute or so to the instrument panel before returning to the pages, a rhythmic metronome that was as predictable as the rumbles of the engines or the thrum of the consoles.

They made a surprisingly good pair. River had apparently been taught the basics of flight in the same place she'd learned how to peg a man in the head at fifty meters with a pistol while her eyes were closed, but she didn't have Wash's instinctive talent or experience with it. She was learning Serenity's quirks, and _fast_, but she admitted Wash was probably going to be better than her even after she'd caught up. On the other hand, while Wash was good at crunching numbers for flight courses and navigation, River was practically a navigational computer all herself. And when they worked together, the two just _clicked_; Wash suspected it might have been her ability to read minds, and she simply worked around and in concert with him, but whatever it was, they flew like pros who'd spent their whole lives at the helm together.

He turned around in his chair idly, looking across the bridge, and his gaze lingered on a divot in the wall, one he'd insisted not be repaired after the battle on Mr. Universe's moon. He stared at it for a bit, a shiver running down his spine and pain echoing across his chest.

"No damage inflicted to insulation or heating systems," River's voice floated across the room, shaking Wash out of his reverie, and he looked up.

"Huh?"

"Its not cold," she clarified, looking up from her book. "But every time you look at that hole, there's a chill." He nodded, letting out a slight sigh. It was hard coping with it. Sure, he'd taken two bullet wounds in the battle with the Reavers, and his life had been in danger many times before then, but that hole symbolized something even more harrowing. Even when he'd been tortured by Niska, he hadn't come that close . . . .

"Did I tell you about that?" he asked her, and she shook her head, those brown eyes watching intently. "Well, I guess it doesn't matter, you can just see it for yourself, right?"

"No," River replied, closing the book. "I try not to read books without permission anymore. Doesn't always work." He frowned, and then looked back at the hole.

"After we crashed," he explained, the memory still before him, unmarred. "And everything settled down, the Reavers were still following us. They fired a couple of harpoons at us. Went right through the bridge window." He shuddered. "I turned to Zoe, and I said, 'I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I,' and then _POW! _Right through the window came one of the harpoons." He reached up, touching his chest. "Cut right across. If I hadn't turned in my chair, I would have been impaled straight through the heart." He closed his eyes again.

"Too close," River said. "An inch and a turn between life and death."

"Yep," Wash said, opening his eyes. "Never been that close to dying, even in the gunfight afterwards. Even . . . even with Niska, I knew Mal was keeping me standing, not letting me give up. But that . . . it feels like I _shouldn't_ have survived."

"Too close," River repeated, and looked away into the stars outside. Wash heard a tremor in her voice, and looked toward her again, to see her hands shake a tiny bit as she held the book. Her gaze was distant, unfocused.

"You okay?" he asked, alarm bells going off in his mind.

"Too close," she said again, and looked down at her hands. "Fingers, reaching around me, pulling me back." Wash flashed back, remembering that battle, and then remembered seeing her dive through that hole, and then, as she reached through the closing doorway, the Reavers dragging her backward. That look on her face had nearly broken him as they hauled her away, and he'd _known_ that she was going to die in the worst way possible.

She held the book tightly, her hands trembling, and then she reached out, carefully setting it down on the console, as if all her strength was being focused on that single act. Wash suddenly found himself standing, moving across the bridge. She was . . . .

"River, don't think about-" he began.

"Can't help it," she said, her voice trembling as she looked down at her fingers again. "They were going to chew and eat and _rip_ and _rape_ and I wasn't going to let them so I-" She looked up at the pilot, and he saw nothing but agony in her eyes.

"I_ gave up_," she breathed. "I fought so long to keep it back, to be normal, but _I gave up_. I became what they _wanted_ me to be." She pulled her knees up toward her chest, wrapping her arms around them, and started shaking even more uncontrollably.

Wash wasn't stupid, and he immediately slapped the intercom.

"Doc, bridge, _River_!" he shouted, and then spun toward his console, flipping switches. The copilot's station began to dim as he shut it down, just in case, and then he spun back toward the girl, whose head was buried in her kneecaps. Sobs burst from her as she remembered, and Wash hurried to her side, putting his hands on her shoulders. God, the way she was crying . . . .

"River, don't go to that place," he pleaded, and he was almost in tears himself as he saw her falling apart. He'd rarely personally seen her suffer like this, but every incident he'd seen had hurt him to watch. "You can't stay there, we need you here. Come on, River. Come on." He had no idea what to say that would comfort her or pull her back, but he clutched her tightly, holding the dam back as best he could-

"What's goin-" came a voice, not Simon's, but Mal's, as he ran into the bridge. "Oh, _wuh de tyen ya _is she-"

"She is, get the doctor!" Wash called.

"Never letting me sleep, every moment _training_, every second in darkness having _more things_ I don't want - cutting into fabric and they're _putting things there_ that don't _belong_," she was rambling, her face hidden as she shivered.

"River, focus," Wash said, clutching her shoulders, steadying her. He tried to keep his voice calm, even though he was afraid, terrified for her and not understanding what she was going through, even as he heard it in her voice. "Come on, you're stronger than this. You're one of the strongest people I know. Stay with me, I'm right here."

Feet clattered on the grating behind her, and hands gently but urgently pushed Wash aside as Simon arrived. The pilot gave ground after a second, afraid to leave the girl alone, even for her brother.

"What's happening?" he said quickly, touching her shoulders. River trembled violently as Simon tried to steady his sister both physically and emotionally.

"Another attack," Wash said, helpless now that someone more experienced was on hand. He ran a hand through his hair, not knowing what to do. "She started talking about that - that _place_ they took her to." Simon's face creased with worry.

"River, its okay, you're not there anymore-" he tried to assure her.

"Doesn't understand, doesn't _work_ that way," she sobbed, her head shaking. "Three years of cutting and slicing and _needles_ and _drugs_ and piercing pain in the eyes doesn't just _go away overnight_ when bad memories come boiling out! No filters, no controls, cut and ripped so they can _spike_ higher on their blinking _gorram torture boxes_!"

Simon had to grip her tightly, as she was starting to thrash about in his arms, her voice rising and echoing around the room. Both their cheeks were wet with her tears.

"Shh, River," he whispered into her ears. "Don't fight me. Don't fight me." He looked down at his bag, and Wash immediately knelt, grabbing a syringe.

"Smoother, blue vial, ten cc's," he hissed, and Wash did as instructed.

"Cold, metal, locking me _down_ and _screaming_ as they drilled through cartilage, crunching and whirring and _I can't sit still!_ Screaming and lightning and they don't respond because they're doing _such good work_!" She didn't even react as Simon jabbed the needle into her arm, but she was shaking so much it was hard to tell. "Make me into a killing machine. All they want is an _assassin_ and a_ murder machine_ and I let them _make_ me into one!"

"You are _not_ a machine, River," Simon whispered, and he lifted her up out of the chair. She started shrieking, thrashing anew, and he quickly backed away, his sister in his arms, before she could hit any of the controls.

"Help me get her downstairs," Simon pleaded, and Wash stepped up, helping to hold the light but violently shaking girl. The two of them hurried out of the bridge, Mal following.

Within moments they were down on the lower levels, and River was already calming down, the sedative starting to work on her. Kaylee and Jayne were hurrying into the common room, looking for the source of the commotion, and they stopped as the doctor and pilot hurried past, cradling the terrified girl between them. Her eyes were wide, peering around the corridors incomprehensibly, but she no longer fought them as they hurried her to her room. Kaylee put a hand over her mouth, but couldn't look away as her friend was rushed past.

"Is River gonna be okay?" Kaylee asked, fear in her eyes as Mal walked past, and he frowned.

"Doc knows what he's doin'," he replied, his expression as pained as the mechanic's, even as he tried to comfort her.

"Thought she was on the mend," Jayne muttered. Mal nodded.

"Me too." Behind them, they heard more footsteps, and Zoe and Inara filtered into the common room, followed by Book a second later.

"What happened?" Inara asked, and Mal nodded toward the passenger dorms.

"River had another attack," he said. "Wash was there, kept her from breakin', I think." Zoe nodded in relief, and Book stepped past, hurrying toward the dorms, a troubled look on his face. He paused as Wash emerged from River's dorm, and the Shepard gave him a comforting smile, patting his shoulder, before stepping inside. The pilot walked back toward the group, looking at the floor, his heart heavy, and Zoe stepped forward to meet him.

"How is she?"

"Quieting down," he replied, and then stopped, looking back down the hallway. They could hear words being whispered, and when he turned toward Zoe, his mouth and eyes showed the pain he was feeling. "I . . . when she starts _doing_ that, I-"

"Its okay," Zoe said, smiling and reaching forward, adjusting her husband's shirt. The familiar gesture seemed to alleviate a tiny bit of the distress he was feeling.

"You did good, Wash," Mal added, and the pilot nodded.

"I just wish I could help her more," he said, shaking his head. Mal nodded, and patted his pilot on the shoulder.

"You did more than enough," he replied. "I've seen her like that before, and if you hadn't been there, she might have lost it completely." Wash exhaled, nodding but not really feeling the compliment.

"If you say so, Captain," he managed.

* * *

She clung to the blanket tightly as it wrapped around her, murmuring over and over again about the cold and clutching at her wrists. Simon held his sister as she shook, the sedative slowing her down, but the wild glaze of her eyes didn't vanish as she peered around the room, still fully caught up in the horrors she was reliving. She was terrified, he knew, and he could only whisper to her, reminding her where she was, who he was. 

"Is she calming down now?" Book's gentle voice called over Simon's shoulder, and the doctor looked up.

"The sedative is working," he admitted. "Slowly. I didn't want to give her too much of a dose, just enough to relax her. But she's still thinking about that place . . . ." Book hesitated at the entrance to the room, but Simon nodded, answering his unasked question. The Shepard stepped inside, smiling warmly as he slid around beside River. Her eyes rose, and as Simon watched, she shook one more time and then started going still, her breathing slowing.

"God is not welcome in the _place_ of good works," she said, meeting the preacher's eyes. "Shepards do not guide flocks down antiseptic halls and . . . and they do not speak to synthetic assassins carved out of flesh." Book's eyes softened, and he reached out, clasping her hands. She slowly released her wrists, hair hanging limp in her eyes as she looked down at his larger, warm fingers enclosing hers.

"You're not in that place now, River," he said. "You're home. On _Serenity_."

"Found _serenity_," she echoed, and closed her eyes. Tears started flowing freely. "Remembered. Didn't want to remember, but surrendered to the _programming_." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Made her into an assassin. Accepted it so she could protect her family. Let them make her into what they wanted her to be. Let them _win_." She opened her eyes, wet and heavy, and looked up at the Shepard.

"Forgive me, father, for I have sinned."

His fingers tightened over hers, and Book shook his head.

"There are no sins to confess River," he said, leaning close. "You have done nothing wrong."

"Surrendered," she repeated. "Surrender is a sin."

"Says who?" Book asked.

"Says Mal. Doesn't say it, but its always there in his pages. Never surrender. Never let them win." Book smiled.

"You shouldn't use the captain as your moral compass, River," he spoke, and she smiled as well.

"No one else to be a father," she replied. Book nodded, and after a moment, she spoke again.

"Made connections," she said, her voice much calmer and clearer. "Too many connections in my mind. Remembered what I didn't want to remember. Talked with Wash about fighting Reavers. Fought Reavers, let programming take over, and didn't want to do that. Had to survive, had to protect everyone, even if I lost and I suffered and I screamed."

The Shepard listened to her words, considering them and the meanings behind them. Even after all this time, he still didn't fully understand her, and probably never would, even if he thought he understood the people who had done this to her. But even though he didn't comprehend everything she said, the emotion in her voice, the way she spoke and shook and cried, told him what she was feeling and what she needed.

"River," Book said, "what you did back there was one of the most noble things I have ever seen. Self sacrifice to protect your loved ones is a virtue, and you cannot let your own fears sully that act." He watched her as she seemed to mull over that fact, the broken processes of her mind straining to understand. Her eyes closed, and she shuddered again, exhaling, and he felt the tension leave her fingers.

"Sacrifice," River echoed, and nodded. "Protect and love. Like your symbol says." Book nodded again, and knew that he'd gotten through to her.

"Will you be okay, River?" he asked, and she slowly nodded.

"Tears are drying, sun is come again," she managed. "Clean words, wash away the dirt." She opened her eyes, and her lips turned up weakly. "Thank you." The Shepard stood, his own smile full and honest.

"If you need me for anything, call," he said, and with a nod of thanks from Simon, the priest left the room, ducking around a large, heavy figure lingering at the doorway.

"_Gorram_ girl fixed now?" Jayne asked, poking his head around the door, and Simon sighed.

"You concern for my sister's health and safety is touching. Yes, she's better," he answered. River looked up at Jayne, and they locked eyes. Her gaze became much more focused, and her smile tightened.

"Bothers Jayne when she goes crazy," she said, her voice clear and distinct. He sneered.

"Aren't botherin' me now," he replied, and tapped his belt, where one of his blades was sheathed. "She ain't got a knife this time, why be worried?"

"Don't need a knife, and you know it," she shot back. She looked down, and he followed her gaze, to see one of her hand opening and then clenching. "Crushed happy time rocks."

"Don't think you're ever gonna git a chance at that 'gain, either," Jayne replied immediately, though some of his bluster was redirected to defend his honor. He looked to Simon, and put a hand on the knife at his belt. "You tell that loopy sister o' yours that if she grabs the happy sack again, I'm'a take Binky here and lessen her finger countin'."

Simon looked up at Jayne, his expression hovering somewhere between indignation at the threat and surprise at what he'd just said. Jayne's anger slowly melted as surprise won out on Simon's face.

"What?" the mercenary asked.

_"Binky?"_

"Told you," River muttered, smiling. "Jayne is a girl's name."

"Oh, you wanna bet, moonbrain?" Jayne snarled, and reached for his pants. Simon shot up, sliding the door closed, and then sat back down beside his sister, who was shaking with laughter. It took him a second to realize.

"You provoked him on purpose, didn't you?" he asked, and the look in her eyes said everything. He laughed. "You are such a _brat_." River replied by leaning forward and hugging her brother.

"Better now. Chased the monsters back under the bed for a spell," she told him, and then closed her eyes. "Sleepy." He nodded, uncertain, and clasped her shoulder. Between the sedative and the fatigue these attacks brought, it was no surprise she was tired.

"Will you be okay?" he asked, and she gave him her "you're-stupid-and-you-know-it" look. With a smile at her expression, he stood, and stepped outside. Once the door slid shut, River crawled under her covers and closed her eyes, letting the exhaustion and the sedatives and the peace she'd found take over. Book's reassuring words filled her once more.

_Sacrifice_. The word was a panacea to soothe her uncontrolled mind . . . .

* * *

"She back to normal?" Mal asked as Simon emerged, and he nodded, sighing. The rest of the crew was gathered in the common room, save Jayne, who was off in the cargo bay after a stern talking-to by Mal about horrifying the womenfolk. 

"As normal as she can get, I think," he replied. "At least I know what set her off this time, but this is the worst attack since we left Miranda." To tell the truth, it was the _only_ real attack since that revelation.

"I thought River was doin' better after Miranda," Kaylee said, and Simon nodded.

"I did too," he replied. "I'm no neurosurgeon, but I can tell that finding Miranda's secret did something to help clear up her mind, yet it seems to have made things worse at the same time."

"My fault," Wash piped in. "I was the one who got her talking about Reavers, and she went off from there." Zoe laid a hand on his arm.

"You couldn't have seen this coming," she assured him, but he didn't seem convinced.

"At least this time there wasn't any real damage," Mal added, and Simon nodded.

"That's one small blessing," he agreed. "We have to thank Wash for that."

"All I did was make the call and try to calm her down," he replied, but Mal shook his head.

"You thought fast and smart, Wash," he stated. "That's half the reason you're on this boat. Could be River could have hurt herself if you hadn't stepped in quick as you did. Certain that things could have gone bad if you hadn't been smart enough to cut off the copilot's station." The pilot nodded, still not fully over blaming himself for what happened.

"Now, that said, we've got work to do, everyone," Mal added, clapping his hands. "Wash, need you back up on the bridge. Kaylee, mule. And Doc." He stepped closer to Simon. "Keep an eye on River, okay? I'm hopin' we don't have any further trouble like this out of her, but if Miranda rattled anything loose in her brain, we'd best keep on our toes." Simon frowned, not liking it, but he agreed.

"I'll do what I can," he said, not certain what he could do beside keep his sister medicated and be on hand to pull her back if she collapsed again.

As the others filtered out, Wash found he wasn't alone as he headed up the steps toward the bridge. He glanced back, to find Book shadowing him, the priest's features troubled and contemplative.

"Gonna join me on the bridge, Shepard?" he asked, and Book was silent for a second.

"You're blaming yourself too much," he remarked, and Wash sighed as he walked into the bridge.

"Everyone's saying that, but that doesn't make it true." He sat down in his chair and started checking the instruments. The Shepard laid a hand on his shoulder as he looked out the front viewport.

"Its the sign of a good man when he feels guilt and honesty when he feels he has done wrong, even if there was _no_ wrong," Book stated. "I don't want to repeat what the others have said, but from the way you're acting, you shouldn't be feeling any guilt over this. You only spoke with her."

"Should have been more careful with what I said," Wash muttered.

"If you feel that way," Book finished, and shrugged. "In any case, I had a favor to ask of you."

"Sure," Wash replied, quick to turn to anything that would take his mind off his own guilt.

"I need to link to the Cortex for a bit," the Shepard remarked, and glanced down the crew hallway behind them. "_Off_ the record."

* * *

"Mal?" 

It was edging toward the middle hours of the evening cycle, and the captain was sitting at the table in the mess, lost in thought, feet up on the wood. He raised his head, and saw Inara glide into the room. She paused next to the table, a curious look on her face, and he took a sip of a drink he was nursing.

"Sorry," he replied, breaking out of his thoughts. "Mulling over this interestin' day is all."

"Need someone to talk to?" she asked, and he shook his head.

"Just tryin' to relax," he said, gazing intently at the wood for several seconds, before looking up and meeting her eyes. There was a sudden lack of relaxation in the room, and Inara sat down beside him.

"If you _really_ want to relax, I can talk to Simon," she said with a smile, and Mal shook once with a laugh, his own smile finally appearing on his face. The tension melted a bit.

"I take some smoothers, Jayne'll slit my throat and take over," he replied, and Inara nodded, still smiling.

"You sure you don't want to talk about anything?" she added, and he shook his head.

"Bit of quiet time is all I'm wanting right now," he mused, and he gave her another half-smile. "Welcome to join me if you want." Inara moved a little bit closer, and Mal leaned back, peering out the viewports directly overhead. She joined him, and together they watched the stars pass by in the Black beyond.

* * *

There was a knock on the door, and she opened her eyes. River let out a mumble, and the door slid open. 

"Hey," Wash called, smiling, and leaned into the room.

"Hello," River called, not sure why the pilot would be waking her up, until he reached inside and set something on the foot of her bed.

"Forgot this," he said, and she looked down, seeing the book she had been reading on the bridge. She reached down and claimed it, and Wash stepped back.

"Sleep good, okay?" he said, and started to slide the door shut.

"Wash," she spoke, and he paused, looking back in.

"It wasn't your fault," she said, and gave him a smile. "Everyone says that, and its true. You don't need to feel bad about it." He hesitated, and then exhaled, shoulders slumping as if a weight was released around his neck. The one person he needed to hear it the most from . . . .

His own smile returned, honest and pure.

"Thank you," he said. "Sleep good, okay?" At the repeated goodbye, he slid the door closed, and River cradled the book to her chest, before closing her eyes and going back to sleep.

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** As with the prologue, this chapter is partially to establish the characters and the setting, as well as foreshadow future events. As I warned in the prologue, this series is going to have River play a pretty central role, and the "Unfinished Business" arc is no different. 

As you probably noticed, River was a big part of this chapter, and I felt that it was important to establish that she is _not _completely healed, and that she's got a long way to go. To be blunt, she's spent three formative years of her life being tortured and trained into a killing machine, had chunks of the brain cut out, and given potent telepathic powers in the process, on top of absorbing countless military and political secrets. Call me a cynic, but I don't think all that trauma is going to be undone simply by her learning the secret behind Miranda; a lot of it is long-term, if not permanent, neural damage and a big chunk of it is due to her psychic powers and her inability to filter anything. Its not just behavioral psychosis, its actual physical trauma. I think she's still quite broken by the end of the Big Damn Movie, and she's defnitely still broken in this series. She's just . . . a bit more stabby.

I personally find some of the most fun I've had writing Firefly to be when I'm just writing the scenes where the characters are interacting normally. I may have indulged in a bit of that this chapter without overtly pressing the plot, but I felt it was necessary to really set the stage for this series and this arc in particular. Trust me when I say that while this chapter was slow, the action will pick up, _very _quickly, in the next chapter.

That said, I loved writing all the characters in this chapter, particularly Wash's bit with River. One thing we don't see much of in the series or movie is interaction between those two, so I decided to include a few scenes between Wash and River just to see how they'd play out. Tell me what you think!

Until next chapter . . . .


	3. Chapter Two: A Good Plan

_**Chapter Two: A Good Plan**_

" . . . doesn't go sour."

"Take it you've never had one 'o them, then," Jayne replied as he slid a handgun into his belt. Mal paused, looking back up the cargo bay, and gave his hired gun a hurt look as Jayne and Zoe worked to get the crates released.

"There was that time with the Lassiter," Mal pointed out, and Jayne raised an eyebrow as he wrangled the last of the legal portion of their cargo into the middle of the bay.

"Speakin' o' that," Jayne said, as if he suddenly had an idea. "Are we ever gonna _sell_ that thing? Heard we had a million square for it, but someone had to go lockin' up our _only_ contact in a box."

"Our only contact who was double-crossin' us from the start," Zoe replied. Jayne snorted.

"Yeah, so busy comin' up with your crosses and dots and whatnot that we forgot to make sure we had the whore's buyers," he muttered. "Had everythin' planned 'cept the part where we sell it if she flipped on us."

"We'll figure out who to pass it onto sooner or later," Mal assured Jayne, and then walked toward the cargo ramp. A pair of all-terrain tracked vehicles had rolled up outside, and men were clambering off.

"Afternoon, gents!" he called, waving, and the leader of the men nodded. He extended a hand, and Mal shook it, noting the good, solid grip. "Heard ya'll are coming for some fine industrial whatsits?"

"That's the plan," replied the man, a sturdy, bearded fellow named Gale. He nodded into the cargo bay, at the crates Jayne and Zoe were unlashing. "That the pickup?"

"All the nano-carbide fluid you boys ordered," Mal continued, a bit loudly, and then leaned in closer to whisper. "Other half's still stowed."

"That's fine," Gale replied. "Meet's still at the warehouse in two hours."

"Good to know," Mal said, and took a step back, clapping his hands as the hired help started hefting the crates. "Alright then, gentlemen, let's get this bit of business taken care of!" He moved to help Gale's men unload the cargo, and ten minutes later, a nice, solid bag of money switched hands. A quick count showed it was honest and matched what they'd been offered, and the two crews parted ways in a refreshingly bullet-free fashion. Overall, everything went according to plan.

That was why Mal was spooked when they started prepping the mule thirty minutes later, loading it with the rest of the fluid and covering it with a tarp. Things were going far too according to plan.

"Sir," Zoe remarked as Mal checked his handgun again for the fifth time in twice as many minutes. "You seem a bit jumpy."

"I feel jumpy," he replied, and leaned over, checking the lashings on the crates. "Things are goin' smooth as silk."

"Isn't that how they should be, sir?" she asked, and he shrugged.

"That's how they _ought_," he replied. "Not how they _should_. Don't enjoy complications very much but I know when to expect them."

"Sir," she remarked, "I think its been so long since a job went right that you're _waiting_ for it to go wrong."

"Yep," Mal agreed. "Call me a cynical, crotchety old bastard-"

"Done," Jayne said. Mal gave him an out-the-airlock look.

"-but I've got a _feelin'_. Like, say, this job is waitin' to go wrong."

"Want to dump the cargo and run?" Zoe asked, and he frowned, shaking his head.

"Don't feel _that _sorta wrong," he admitted. "Just . . . there's complications, _always_ complications, and I wanna see 'em comin' for once." As he spoke, he looked up toward the top of the bay, and spotted a tuft of tangled black hair poking through one of the gratings.

"Mal," Zoe said, her tone warning. "Simon was mad enough the last time you had that idea."

"Not gonna _make_ her come along," Mal replied, starting toward the steps. "Just gonna ask."

"Moonbrain might not be feelin' up to readin' today," Jayne remarked. "Was ugly what happened, yesterday." Mal nodded, and headed for the stairs.

He skipped up the steps, and saw the slender form of River laying on her back, staring up at the bay ceiling. One hand was tapping the grating idly, to a rhythm he couldn't hear, while the other was twirling her hair, further entangling it. She was wearing a mix of one of Kaylee's overall pants and boots with one of Wash's colorful shirts, unbuttoned and exposing a plain black shirt underneath. Her expanding fashion sense was doing more to convince Mal she was batty than her ramblings.

"Hey, there, little one," he called, walking toward her, and she peeked up, her eyes curious.

"Fourth gun hand?" she asked, in that voice that he'd come to associate with her already knowing what he was thinking.

"Fourth set of eyes, too," he replied. "Give you a bigger cut of the take, how 'bout?" She sat up, smiling, and then kicked up to her feet in a single smooth motion, before giving him an inquisitive look.

"Expecting tangles," she said, still fiddling with her hair, and Mal shrugged.

"Always," he replied. "Hopin' you'll see 'em comin'." She nodded, and peered out over the cargo bay.

"Need a gun," she said, looking directly at Jayne, who frowned and crossed his arms.

"Ain't," he said, blunt, simple, and obstinate. _No one _handled his weapons but Jayne Cobb - _especially_ not River.

"We'll just get one out of the locker in back," Mal replied, and led her downstairs to the cages nestled in one of the rear corners of the cargo bay.

"Jayne doesn't like it," she murmured, and he glanced back to the girl.

"Doesn't like what?"

"Me having a weapon," she replied. "Surprised you'll let me use one. Surprised_ me_ you'd let me use one." Mal smirked as they neared the locker.

"True that you're not perfect," Mal explained, fiddling with the combination. "Not all corect in the brainpan, so to speak. But that don't matter none. Remember when you broke out? I asked you a question."

"Was I person, or was I a weapon," she said, and he nodded.

"All I seen, all I know," he said, opening the locker, "is you're a lot of the latter, but ain't _nothin_' gonna change that there's a whole lot _more_ of the former, Albatross. You fly my ship. You're part of my crew. _That's_ what matters."

He started looking for a weapon that might fit her, when River's fingers snaked past him and snatched a freshly polished .45 pistol. He turned as she deftly unloaded, checked, and reloaded it, before giving him an innocent smile.

"Took down three, one two three, not looking," she said, gesturing with the pistol, and Mal realized why she'd picked this one out.

"That the one Kaylee was using?" he asked, and she nodded, before leaning past him and grabbing a holster and belt from inside the locker.

"Suppressive fire, too much pressure, no training," she whispered. "Saw fear, saw panic. Helped." Mal nodded, patting the girl on her shoulder.

"Saved her life, you know that?" he said, and she nodded.

"Still afraid afterward," she mused as she slipped the gun belt around her slender waist. "Scared until _he_ came out of the black, and _we_ stopped him."

"That we did," Mal replied, getting adept at reading her cryptic talk, and recognizing the reference to that sadistic bounty hunter they'd dealt with, what seemed like years ago.

"Six weeks, two days, nine hours, forty-three minutes at moment of breach," she rattled off, and tightened the belt, before sliding the weapon into her holster. "Magazines."

"Right," Mal said, lost in her mutterings, and took a couple of magazines from the locker. "Best keep that hid, understand? Not expecting shooting this time."

"Bad liar, Mal," she stated, smiling playfully, and poked him in the chest, before walking toward the rear door and the infirmary beyond. "Need to make Simon panic."

"Hey, he panics, its _your_ job to calm him down!" Mal called as he walked back toward the mule. He peered over it again, and glanced at Jayne. "Jayne! I said only as many grenades as you had hands!"

"You brought the moonbrain along, figured it might help if we had some more firepower," the mercenary replied.

"Jayne, we're here to sell perfectly legitimate illegal cargo, not burn down half the planet," Mal shot back, and the mercenary grumbled as he grabbed the sack of bombs and pulled them out of the mule.

* * *

"Oh, no, _no_, River," Simon said, staring up at his armed and adorable sister. If he wasn't partially covered by a blanket of Kaylee, he would have stood up, but the mechanic wrapped her arms around him to keep him sitting and distracted in the common room. "You're not about to go out on another job with Mal, are you?"

River's smile, deceptively innocent, answered his question, along with the handgun strapped to her waist.

"Is the Captain making you do this?" he asked, about to - _gently_ - push Kaylee off him, but River shook her head.

"_Serenity_ is cramped and boring," she replied, tapping a bare foot on the floor and then tracing Bell curves into the carpet. "I stayed on the ship last time we landed, and I want some fresh air."

"Fresh air that may be filled with _bullets_," Simon replied. "You know that-"

"River's got more fight in her'n half the crew put together," Kaylee cut in, sitting up in Simon's lap. Before he could reply, she shifted her position, grinding her butt cheeks in his lap, and his focus was quickly torn. "She can handle herself jus' fine." She glanced at River and winked. "Right?"

"Right," River confirmed with a hair-bouncing nod.

"But I don't want-" Simon was trying to fight back control as Kaylee twisted a bit in his arms, and blood flowed away from his brain.

"I can make decisions on my own, Simon," River replied, patting the gun on her hip and raising her eyebrows. "Almost eighteen now, sufficient legal age to drink, smoke, and have sex with any-"

"No!" Simon said, closing his eyes, and both girls giggled at the octave of his voice. "Those are images I _don't need_, River." He opened his eyes, only to see his sister skipping away toward the cargo bay, laughing. He wanted to pursue, but Kaylee interfered with that _quite_ effectively. Had Inara been teaching her some tricks when he wasn't looking?

"Let her go, Simon," she said into his ear a moment later, as he watched the cargo door with trepidation. "She's right. She is old enough to go on a job if she feels like it. Heck, I wasn't much older than her when I shipped out with _Serenity_, and I didn't have all them fightin' skills to protect me."

Simon sighed and settled back, shaking his head as he surrendered.

"I just . . . ." he paused, thinking. "Yesterday I was administering smoothers and caring for her after a psychotic episode," he said. "Now I'm watching her run off into a potential gun battle, and she's skipping into it without a care, and my gut says that she's the most capable person in the bunch. Some days I just don't know what River I'm looking at."

"But you still love her, right?" Kaylee asked, and he nodded.

"That's why I get scared," he murmured, and the mechanic pulled him tight.

"I'd be more worried if'n you weren't," she whispered, kissing him on the nose.

* * *

_Rumbling._ The mule was old; they'd bought it off a used-vehicle dealer. Its innards were functional, and the frame was solid. The meat had been worn out, but now it purred under Kaylee's ministrations, singing a little hovercraft song as the grav drive engaged and sun kissed their faces.

Triumph. The name was odd, considering what little of it there was n this planet. River had read the almanac and guidebooks and various articles about the planet on a whim a few months back, and understood why the name had been chosen on what was another rock of a border moon on the outer edges of the system, barely kept in Earth-That-Was ecological balance by constant terraforming work.

The name had been chosen because for the people who lived here, who breathed and ate and slept and worked and survived, it _was_ a triumph.

That wasn't what was said in the pages and data streams, but she _felt_ it, just like she had the last time she'd come here, seven months ago, when Mal had been snared by spider's silk and scented honey. She smelled it in the air, heard it in the breeze, the songs, the laughter of the people who lived here. She didn't even need to delve into their own books, simple and focused as they were, to pull out the fact that survival on a border moon was as mighty a struggle as any battle Mal or Zoe had fought in the war.

Today was a good day, she knew, as she sat in the mule, the hovercraft speeding over the beaten dirt roads of the sprawling township whose name she didn't remember. She was too busy enjoying the breeze, her hair flapping and tangling and untangling a hundred times over at once. Today was _clear_, and while she _heard_ without her ears, the sound wasn't _**chaos**_. She could sort it out, filter the incoming sensations without having to direct conscious effort to controlling what she perceived as real or false. It was a blessing of a day, especially after what had happened on the bridge the previous one.

Today's thoughts were clear. **Lucid**. Or as lucid as they became. Lucidity required conscious effort, effort she hated, because she wanted to be free and flowing like the wind in her face, like her feet when the music started. Even carefully picking her words often resulted in paradoxes of thought; describing what she was seeing and what she was _seeing_ was difficult, especially when the mind couldn't sort out what she saw and what she _saw_. Sometimes, she didn't even know what she was saying, the thoughts jumbled and unsorted like a _rattling box of spare parts_ Kaylee dropped on the floor.

But the motion, the shapes, the breeze, and the laconic thoughts of her companions, dancing between ease and unease, were a soothing shot of familiarity after a nightmare-free sleep. Jayne was thinking as he always did, direct, blunt, plodding thoughts that were nonetheless clear and sharp. He wasn't learned, but he was _learned_ at the same time. He'd never name a tenth of the stars in the 'verse, but he could kill a man with one hand, forge a passport without error, or spot an ambush a continent away.

Zoe was a dagger, sharp, quick, deadly, and precise. Like Jayne, everything was known to her, but while his mind was focused on the individually tactical, hers was on the unit. The squad as a whole, their purpose, and their places in it. She was the organizer, the one who instilled order on the mob of gun-toting bastard children led by the biggest gun-toting bastard child of them all. An equalizer, a knife that slipped wherever it needed, always in the precise place she was required.

Mal was _chaos_ to Zoe's **order**. She was tight, controlled, and sharp, he was loose, fluid, a hurricane swirling about. None was at home better than he, forging into the havoc without fear or hesitation, ever forward, never stopping, never controlled, _still and_ _always free_. He stormed the gates, Zoe kept them from crashing down on him, as it always was and as it always would be.

And behind them, the little girl. Jayne was spooked by her, but he always was, and that spookiness was mixed with healthy respect. Zoe was split, filing her in as both an asset and a wild card, uncertain what she might do, and that tiny bit of distrust was well due. But River was part of her team, and thus she was included in whatever considerations she made. Mal . . . Mal was ready for her just as he was ready for anything, but he relied on her, just as he relied on everyone.

More than anyone else on the crew, even Simon, Mal _trusted_ her. He trusted her to fly the ship, he trusted her to watch his back, he trusted that she was more a _girl _than a _weapon_. That trust sunk down **_deep_**, and it was mixed in with the breeze and the sun and the peaceful lucidity as the ingredients of her smile.

The township they floated through was much larger than the one they'd visited before. In fact, was one of the few small cities that was actually on Triumph, complete with a working port authority and an actual private police force. Though whoever laid out the town had obviously been inebriated at the time, for the warehouse district was on the other end of town from the ports. Nonetheless, they made good time and arrived within fifteen minutes, just a couple shy of the arranged time of the meet. A large warehouse loomed up overhead, and discreet-looking men outside waved them through the rolling door.

River thumbed through their minds' pages. They were on edge, but not outside what was expected. She said as much to Mal.

"Good sign," he said with a grin, but his own unease tripled. At this rate, he was so wired up that he would probably have a heart attack if they got back to _Serenity_ without any shots fired.

She smelled the cool, air-conditioned interior of the warehouse, and sighed a little in contentment as the mule came to a halt. Gale emerged from the piles of crates and shelves that filled the otherwise open and vulnerable warehouse, and he and Mal shook once more while she clambered down, her fingers running along the warm metal frame of the hovercraft. Mal, Jayne, and two of Gale's men unloaded the boxes while River and Zoe opted to hang back, keeping an eye on the warehouse and the small number of armed men patrolling the perimeter.

Another thumb through their minds, and River relaxed. None of them seemed to be expecting anything, and Gale himself was only as nervous as could be expected from an average businessman forced to deal illegally to support his company. Once the crates were unloaded, Mal and Zoe moved off to collect their pay in the office overlooking the warehouse, leaving Jayne and River to stand idle guard by the mule. A couple of workers passed by, traded comments with Jayne and nods with her, and continued on.

It was quiet. _Boring. _But _pleasantly_ boring. No one in the warehouse had any ill intentions, and no one immediately outside the warehouse did either. People just went about their business, living simple. She liked that.

As the minutes passed, River leaned against the mule, and began to hum, tapping the metal with one finger as she fiddled with the tail of Wash's shirt with the other.

* * *

"So, how goes the liquid diamond caper?" Inara asked as she stepped onto the bridge. Wash sighed, leaning back in his chair.

"No shots fired yet, so I assume we're doing well," he replied. "Got no alerts on the Cortex, no Alliance ships within a day's travel, and we're on a semi-independent planet run by semi-independent local militia and no unified planetary authority. Didn't even need to slave our nav comps to port control. Overall, we're good."

"Mal must be sweating bullets," Inara mused, and Wash grinned.

"Don't worry, though, for we are a _bastion_ of calm," he replied, drumming his fingers on the console. "A mountain of icy men and women, in a ship of frozen methane, amidst a sea of liquid nitrogen. Calm, calm, _calm_."

"Which is why you're so twitchy?" Inara asked, and Wash paused, before laughing.

"My Zoe's out there," he admitted, running a hand through his hair. "And after what happened yesterday, I worry about River too."

"Well, Mal's not expecting any insanity this time around," Inara added, which just made Wash's frown deepen.

"That's what makes me even more worried," he replied. "I've been with Mal and Zoe long enough. Things never go smooth with those two. Push comes, Mal's going to make things go wrong just so they'll go wrong."

"I doubt he's _that_ much of a fool," the Companion said, shaking her head as she turned to leave. "But keep an eye open, all the same?"

"Both, wide like I'm on liquid adrenaline," he shot back, miming sticking a needle in his arm.

* * *

"Any good business deal deserves a drink, you know," Gale said with a smile as he extended a bottle to Mal and Zoe. The captain grinned and took the offered poison, but Zoe demurred. They sat in Gale's office, just the three of them, the owner's money already tucked away in Mal's pocket. It had been quick, simple, and easy, and now they were being offered drinks.

Mal sniffed and then knocked the snifter of whiskey back, sighing appreciatively. He glanced at Zoe, and gave her a careful nod, telling her that, as far as he was aware, the drink didn't seem to be actually poisoned past the alcohol itself, which was almost enough to knock a grown man off his feet.

"Strong stuff," Mal remarked, and Gale laughed, taking a drink of his own.

"The best stuff, brewed right here in town," he replied. "Got a cousin with a share in it, gets me samples free. I like to share what doesn't cost me anything." They both nodded, and while Mal poured a bit more - just enough to keep his head clear - he glanced to Zoe again.

"Honestly, sir, we should be leaving," she said, and Gale nodded, even as he features fell a bit.

"Been a while since I got a shipment from folk as honest as you," he said, and extended a hand. Mal shook it, followed by Zoe. They started to stand, Mal finishing the last of the whiskey, and the Captain clapped his hands once.

"Nice, easy milk run," he said, finally letting himself relax. "I could get used to this. No feds, no running for our lives, no bullets."

"Doctor is going to be relieved we don't need him when we get back," Zoe added as they bid Gale farewell and headed for the door.

* * *

She'd long since stopped trying to read their minds, as they were all dull and irrelevant. Too many simple folk just doing what they did. Instead, she focused her awareness, peering through holes and cracks, extending her senses outward toward _that which didn't think,_ only _resonated_ with the echoes of thought and action. Her mind flowed around the mechanical bits and pieces, searching and poking, peeking and hunting for anything of interest.

All the while, River Tam sang to herself, while Jayne paced impatiently on the other side of the mule.

As she spread her thoughts to encompass the nonliving, she felt motion. A tingle in the air, the vibration of electricity in a place it wasn't supposed to be. Curious, she looked closer, and then, cutting in under her own little music, she heard _another rhythm_.

"Tick-tick," River whispered, frowning. Her fingers began slowly tapping on the side of the mule, in time with the simple, repetitive metronome she was hearing. The burly mercenary looked over at her.

"What was that?" Jayne asked, suddenly on edge. Anytime River said anything random on a job, he got worried. In fact, anytime River did_ anything_ funny on a job, he got worried.

"Tock . . . tock," she said, looking at the asphalt, tapping her fingers again. "It clicks and ticks and tocks, running down to . . . ." she shook her head, lips pressed tightly together. Jayne reached into the mule, grasping Vera's handle with unease.

"You seein' somethin'?" he asked.

"Electrical circuits, connecting to . . . reactive mass of-" she said, and then looked up, eyes filling with horror.

_"Tick-tock!" _she shrieked, and Jayne yelped as River dove for the mule, scrabbling for the comm.

* * *

"Well," Mal said, grinning as he patted the bag of cash in his pocket. "That went-"

The comm warbled, and he heard a voice scream-

_"BOMB!"_

Then the world became noise.

* * *

She flew, free and clear, smoke and fire and sparks dancing around her in a graceful ballet of soundless force.

She hit the ground, rolling_ past_ Jayne as he crashed down beside her, his thoughts racing, focused, _sharp_, and practiced. The huge man was up on his feet before he'd stopped moving, ripping his handgun from its holster.

Positioned at the other side of the building. Force and composition indicated concussion and flash elements mixed in with heavy breaching charge. Salty _blood_ in the air. **_Screams_**, despite that she was deaf. Dim pain in one flank, where bits had dug in, annoying her.

Cold metal in her hands. Minds, books flipping, images playing, confusion and terror from every direction, and then _**sharpness**_, from the office. Mal and Zoe, _roaring chainsaw _and _dagger_.

Purpose, _intent_, **violence**. Bunched together, pouring into the hole, weapons searching for targets. Bullets, _blood_, _**cries**_. Didn't see them in the smoke, couldn't _hear_ them with deafness.

_Didn't need to; they saw enough to damn themselves._

Like a targeting satellite, River saw their locations through their own eyes and compared them to her own position, and then the numbers slid into place. Her arm shook as she picked partners for the shortest dance she could imagine.

* * *

His chest hurt.

There was a lot of thanks to be had for the gorram girl, though. If there was one thing being in this line of work had taught him, when the "one in the know" started screaming anything that began with _"bo", _you _ducked_. Kept a chunk of spinning metal from lopping his head in half, but he was still hit by the shockwave of the explosion, and a pile of shrapnel smacked against the low-profile armor he wore, stinging his torso somethin' awful.

Now he was up, he was getting shot at, and he was underarmed. Quickest solution to all these conditions was Vera. A wall of bullets was keeping him from getting to the mule, so Jayne dropped to his hands and knees and began crawling under cover. The air nearby rang with gunshots as the girl came up shooting, her arm twitching and shifting and her eyes closed tight.

Downright unsettlin' to see her shoot like that.

Jayne rose to a crouch under her cover fire and scrambled for the mule. As he got close, he peeked his head over the top for an instant, looking for anyone directing violence at his particulars, and then reached inside, his hands closing around the comforting weight of Vera.

Shots ricocheted off the mule, and Jayne ducked back, giving his rifle a once-over before rising and shouldering it. He eased around the side of the vehicle, hunting cautiously for targets. Smoke and fire choked the inside of the warehouse, and he could hear the shouts and screams of workers and security guards being cut down by the invaders, but how many were shooting at them he couldn't tell.

"Twenty books," he heard the moonbrain mutter behind him. "Three closed, no pages rustling anymore." A shot from her pistol. "Four now."

Okay. Going by her, that meant at least sixteen bad guys at least in the warehouse, all over the place. _Go se_, sixteen _hun dans _trying to kill them. Whose oatmeal did the Captain piss in to get that many gun-toting psychos after them?

Two figures became visible ahead, moving behind some crates as they circled around the mule. Jayne leaned out, raising Vera, and the girl roared in his hands, shattering through a crate and clipping one of them. The metal beside him screamed as bullets slammed into it from another direction, and Jayne had to duck back behind cover. As he did so, the two he was aiming at took up positions, and another pair started forward. The first pair began hosing his cover, and the burly mercenary cursed again as he was pinned down.

Fire and maneuver tactics. Whoever these guys were, they were military-trained, or equivalent, and that gave Jayne Cobb a sinking feeling in his stomach.

* * *

He couldn't hear himself, but he figured his colorful string of curses had some impact on the universe at large as he ran down the steps from what was left of the office, his pistol in hand. Zoe was right behind him, he knew by instinct, covering her corners with the compact little lever-action she always carried in her coat.

Most of Gale's office was now vapor or debris, including the unfortunate businessman. If Mal and Zoe had stayed for drinks, they'd be intermixed.

"Every _gorram_ time!" he screamed, but no one could hear him among the noise and the ringing. "_Every gorram time _something goes wrong!" He didn't know whether to be angry or relieved.

Well, now that it had finally happened, it was time to sort the mess out, and as they ran down the office stairs, a whole manner of ugly was rolling out toward them. Men in black fatigues, carrying rifles, shotguns, and sub-machineguns, were storming through the breach which had been blown in the wall where Gale's office had been set up, which meant that Mal and Zoe were right on top of them but somehow unseen.

For half a second he was raising his pistol, intending to get in a few shots at their unprotected flank, but then Zoe was pulling him down as gunfire slashed toward them. They ducked behind a series of crates as lethal attention was sent their way.

She saw the way they moved, the cover-and-advance and corner-covering, room-clearing maneuvers of a disciplined military-trained unit, and had known instantly that if they weren't behind cover they were dead. These were not border-world militia or gangs of bandits; they were mercenaries, military, a fed assault unit, or something similar, and that was bad news. The expertly cut the room up into fire sectors and gunned down everyone they saw as they advanced.

"Sir," Zoe yelled as Mal's hearing came back. He leaned around the crate and fired a shot, barely missing one of enemy troops. Return fire forced him back behind cover.

"Zoe?" Mal said, firing another couple of shots, scoring a hit and sending one of their attackers flopping to the floor. The question didn't need a qualifier. He was waiting for her move.

The invading troops were pressing forward, scything through the middle of the warehouse. Return fire was coming from everywhere, and Mal thought he heard Jayne's enormous hand-cannon blazing on the other side of the building, but the battle was viciously one-sided. The black-clad men were rapidly slaughtering everyone in the building without slowing, and were moving to envelop and flank their own precarious position.

"Retreat, sir?" she said, her lever-action firing and dropping another of the soldiers. She dropped back, rounds slamming into their crate. Mal pivoted, spotted a pair moving from cover, and pegged one in the chest. His companion dropped prone and sprayed Mal's position with bullets, forcing the captain back to safety.

"We got an out?" he asked, hunting for an enemy, but found most of the intruders were now behind cover and not presenting easy targets. He kept firing for the hell of it, to keep their heads down and remind them that he was still alive.

"Door, twelve meters to our rear," Zoe called, and he looked back behind him, nodding, before pulling out his radio. There was a service exit just behind them, but Jayne was on the other side of the building judging by the gunfire, and he couldn't see River anywhere.

"Jayne, talk to me," he called, firing at a man peeking out from behind a crate. He missed, but the soldier dropped back anyway.

"_Got a mountain 'a ugly firin' at us," _came the terse reply, followed by the boom of Vera. "_Sumbitches got us surrounded over here!"_

"Can you get to the mule?" Mal asked, and Jayne laughed.

_"Hell, its the only cover we've got!"_

"Where's River?"

"_Crazy's right beside me," _he assured Mal.

"We're cut off over on this side," Mal shouted, firing again, keeping another pair of troops from flanking them. "Get on the mule and get out of here!" There was a moment's pause, and Mal expected Jayne to simply agree and get moving.

_"What about you two?" _he called back, and Mal paused, surprised by his concern.

"We got an out on this side," Mal said. "Go on, get moving!" he adjusted the frequency on his radio. "Wash!"

_"Yeah, Mal?" _came the pilot's laconic reply, a tiny bit of calm amidst the insanity. Mal was about to speak when a stream of automatic gunfire cut through the air. Mal returned a couple of shots to get the point across. _"Uh, everything okay out there?"_

"Just a gunfight is all," Mal replied. "Get _Serenit_y in the air, these boys are serious."

_"On it!" _Wash replied. Mal was about to add something, but was interrupted by a grenade rolling around the corner of his cover.

_"Ching-wah tsao-!"_ His boot flew out, kicking the grenade away, and he dropped to the floor as the room shook. A hand grabbed him by the back of his coat, and Zoe was dragging Mal to his feet. They fired over their shoulders as they stumbled for the door, bullets flying toward them from every conceivable direction. Her boot met the door and the door acceded to her demands, and both of them stumbled out into the open air.

Six more black-clad men were waiting for them in the street outside, weapons drawn.

* * *

"This is gettin' too tangly for me," Jayne muttered as he scythed fire through enemy cover. One of the best things about Vera was that she wasn't too partial to most types of cover; the tungsten-tipped rounds he'd loaded her with punched clean through the crates most of the enemy were using for cover. "Girl, need to-"

"Ride the mule," she replied, firing another calculated shot that took an exposed hand off at the palm, leaving the soldier screaming on the floor. She spun, hopping up into the hovercraft's driver seat. Jayne was about to yell at her for exposing herself when she twisted in the chair, somehow bending down behind the cover afforded by the hovercraft's sides while still fiddling with the steering controls and powering it up.

Jayne didn't waste time, firing bursts from Vera over her body as she got the mule back online. As the engines roared to life, Jayne leapt onto the back of the hovercraft, crouching behind what cover its side panels could offer.

He was nearly thrown off the vehicle when River whipped it around and gunned the engine, accelerating toward the rolling doors. The mercenary ducked down in the seat and braced himself for the impact.

"Go on!" he yelled. "Bust straight through!" River accelerated the mule as fast as it could go in the confined space, angling for the wide sheet metal doors, and Jayne gritted his teeth-

Then he toppled forward into the passenger seat as the mule bounced off, metal screeching with the impact. The doors were dented outward slightly, but were otherwise undamaged, and now a storm of bullets were slamming into the mule from all sides as the enemy closed in.

"_Gorram_, that always works in the vids!" Jayne was snarling as he tried to stand up, ignoring the pain in his back. The low-profile armor took most of the impact from _that_ screw-up. He fingered Vera as his mind worked out how to escape, and as usual, his rifle gave him the answer he needed.

"Okay, new plan, need to-" River didn't let him finish, throwing the hovercraft in reverse and flinging the mule back a good ten meters from the door, and almost flinging Jayne a second time. As he regained his balance, she looked at him expectantly, and the mercenary shook his shoulders, and then raised his beloved rifle.

Mal had been shocked to find Jayne installing a grenade launcher on the already over-powered assault rifle, but that addition proved its worth as a grenade _ploomped_ from the fat, short barrel. It slammed into the door and ripped a blossoming yellow-white hole in the metal, scattering debris everywhere outside.

Jayne dropped back down as River gunned the engine again, this time punching through the hole Jayne had blasted, white-hot strips of tortured metal scraping along the sides of the mule as it screamed away from the ambush.

"Yeah! Whooo!" Jayne screamed, pumping a fist in the air. "Showed them sumbitches just what it means to-"

"Pursuit," River said, her voice even and controlled, as a pair of groundcars laden with more black-clad men rolled around the corner. Jayne's face dropped.

"_Xi niu_ _da xiang bao za shi de la du zi!_" he shouted as he twisted around, bringing both Vera and his immaculate vocabulary to bear.

* * *

"You still objecting to my workouts?" Book asked as he started pumping the weight bar. The cargo bay was quiet and empty, save for the Shepard, sitting on Jayne's workout bench, and Simon, who stood beside him, spotting for the preacher.

"Not really," the doctor replied. "From what I can tell all of your injuries have healed, so I don't see a reason why I should keep you from strenuous exercise."

"Which doesn't explain why you offered to spot for me," Book replied, continuing to lift. "I know that you like to keep in shape, but weight training isn't your style."

"Nervousness, I guess," Simon replied, shrugging.

"Worried about your sister," Book mused, and the doctor nodded.

"I'm sure she can handle herself; I mean, I've seen her survive impossible odds first hand, but I still . . . ."

"You're still wanting to protect her? She's still that traumatized and helpless girl you promised to always protect," Book mused, finishing his set, and Simon took the bar and set it back on its rest.

"The shift is jarring, yes," Simon said with a sigh. "And after yesterday's attack, I'm more worried than ever. That was one of the worst ones she's had in months, and now she's out there riding shotgun with the Captain, running headlong into all manner of trouble." Book nodded, and started curling some of the lighter weights.

"Have you talked with Kaylee about this?" he asked, and Simon nodded.

"She says I should just let things run their course," he said. "River is a few months from eighteen now, and I'll admit she's probably the single most capable member of this crew, but she's erratic and I'm convinced she's still not fully healed. I'm worried she may _never_ be fully healed."

"If that's the case, then maybe-"

_"Everyone, look alive!"_ Wash's voice echoed across the cargo bay, and both men looked up. _"The meet got ambushed! Mal wants us in the air, lock up the cargo bay!"_

"_Wuh de tyen ha," _Simon breathed, and spun, running toward the cargo bay controls, as Book hurried to the intercom.

"Do they need assistance?" the Shepard called as Simon neared the controls. His hands moved toward the buttons to lock the bay door, and then there was movement-

The Doctor threw himself to the ground, instinctively recognizing the shape of a rifle from his long experience with this crew. A second later, bullets ripped over his head, and he rolled around the control panel, before scrambling for cover behind some boxes.

Black-clad men were running toward the cargo bay from outside, at least a dozen of them, bullets cutting past Simon as he took cover. A moment later, another rifle joined in from the other side of the bay, and one of the advancing troops toppled, clutching his leg. The other soldiers took cover, and the incoming fire slackened.

The doctor took the momentary reprieve to rise and run toward the back of the bay, where the Shepard was crouched, a rifle from the weapons locker in hand. The locker itself was wide open, and Simon hurried over to it, grabbing a sub-machinegun out of the cage and loading it.

"We're being boarded," Book muttered unnecessarily. Simon grimaced, raised the sub-machinegun in his hands, and returned fire as the enemy troops stormed up the cargo ramp and into _Serenity_.

It hadn't taken long for this job to go sour.

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** As I promised, the action picked up in this chapter, as our mysterious bad guys start putting down the hurt. Expect the plot to seriously pick up over the next few chapters, as well as darken _quite_ a bit as we learn just who the villains here really are, and what they have planned for our Big Damn Heroes.

Writing River's POV is both interesting and difficult. She doesn't have a straightforward narrative like most other people, and I tried to capture how discordant and erratic her thought processes were, along with reflecting that element of innocence she still exhibits in spite of everything she's gone through. To help show her mindset and personality, I like to play with the text a bit, which is why much of her thoughts are centered instead of left-aligned and there's more bolds and italics in her thoughts than normal. As the story progresses, expect things to get much more varied, because River's mind is going to be run through the wringer by the time this story arc is over.

Nealry all of the Mandarin I used and abused in this chapter comes directly from the series itself. My own skill at mandarin is pretty dismal.

Now, that said, this chapter is pretty straightforward. Not much else for me to comment on. Tell me what you think!

Until next chapter . . . .


	4. Chapter Three: Snatched

_**Chapter Three: Snatched**_

Six men, all armed, all looking like they were ready to use their weapons, and a burning suspicion in the back of the mind that they recognized the gun-toting pair standing outside the burning warehouse.

So, Mal did the first thing that came to his mind.

"Honey, I told you this was the wrong way to the circus," Mal said, turning toward Zoe.

"But there's clowns," she replied, absolutely deadpan. Mal glanced toward the armed men, who were showing the tiniest bit of confusion. This was not how one usually reacted to heavily-armed men pointing weapons at one's face.

"Did you guys see any clowns in there?" Mal asked, pointing with his free hand toward the fire.

Three of the men glanced that way, a natural human reaction only enhanced by the unexpected absurdity.

Then Mal and Zoe were firing, leaping, charging, and praying, all in the same moment. Two of the enemy troops - ones still looking at the pair - fell instantly, and another's skull was cracked as Zoe stove in his head with her rifle butt. Mal pistol whipped another man, and was then tackled by a second foe, while Zoe smashed the last one across the face. He toppled backward, the sub-machinegun he carried tumbling from his fingers, but he was pulling out a knife and shoulder-checking straight into Zoe before she could bring her weapon to bear and cock the lever-action.

Mal fell into the dirt road, struggling with his opponent as the man tried to strangle him, his pistol lost in the collision. Hands and fingers flailed, fists pounded, and the captain coiled one leg under him. His hard-soled boot jabbed upward, kicking the man off of him. Mal scrambled to his feet at the same time as his foe rose, and the captain tackled his opponent before he could draw another weapon. This time, Mal ended up on top, and started pounding his foe in the face as he lay on the ground beneath him.

The man Mal had pistol-whipped was standing and raising his shotgun, pointing it shakily at the captain's back.

The knife-wielding mercenary came at Zoe with a straightforward thrust, a maneuver she was all too familiar with. A quick step to the her forward right, and she had moved around the blade. Her left arm clamped down around the man's knife arm while her right uppercutted him in the jaw with the butt of her lever-action. His teeth snapped closed painfully, and she smashed the barrel of the sturdy weapon on his head, dropping him to the ground.

She heard movement behind her that wasn't the captain's struggle, and spun, cocking her weapon as she did so. Her shot was short-range and center mass, sending the shotgun-wielding trooper to the dirt.

Mal punched his victim two more times and then pushed off, before soccer-kicking him in the head with an extremely solid boot, blasting him into unconsciousness. He glanced up at Zoe, and gave her a nod, which she returned. Scooping up his pistol, Mal hurried after her as she led the way from the burning charnel house.

Bullets slammed into the wall behind them as more troops came after them in pursuit, and Zoe and Mal took off around the corner.

He hoped Jayne and River were doing better.

* * *

Rounds deflected off the rear of the mule as the wheeled vehicles rolled behind them in pursuit, the passengers spraying wild and inaccurate automatic fire at the hovercraft. The girl kept it swerving around obstacles and screaming pedestrians as she shot through the town, trying to evade their pursuers, and Jayne addressed them with fire from his heavy rifle. The armor-piercing rounds would have ripped up the all-terrain vehicles, if he could actually _hit_ any of them amidst all the damn turning River was doing. 

"Your ability to consistently hit targets is bellow acceptable parameters," she called back, her tone as calm as if she was sleeping on a casket.

"I don't see you shootin' anybody, dammit!" Jayne yelled back, releasing the magazine from his rifle and loading a fresh one. "And all your whippin' about is making it hard to shoot straight!"

"Okay. I'll handle Vera, you handle the mule."

"No one touches my Vera 'cept me!" Jayne yelled back. Some tiny bit of his mind recognized that River seemed to be the least batty she'd been in a while, in a situation where she was trying to keep them from getting run off the road by a gang of angry mercenaries. Never could tell what was gonna happen with a _gorram_ crazy person.

"You cannot handle rapidly-changing variables and conditions," she replied, and then sent them on a ninety-degree turn around a corner. Incoming fire slackened a bit, though Jayne nearly lost his balance. He braced himself, shouldering Vera, and as one of the enemy vehicles came around the corner, he put two rounds into the man in the passenger seat. "But at the same time, you won't give me the only weapon that can penetrate metal skin. We'll have to make do with your sub-par aiming."

"I'll show you sub parts!" Jayne growled, and loaded his only remaining grenade into the grenade launcher. He poked his head up, ducked back from a burst that hit too close for comfort, and rose. The grenade launcher burped, and the explosive hit the groundcar dead center in its engine block. The front half of the vehicle was consumed in a roiling ball of fire, and Jayne pumped his fist in the air, cheering at the top of his lungs.

"Two vehicles remaining," River called back after his roar passed, and he looked back at her, before dropping down behind cover. Rounds cut through the air, zipping past so close that one tore a gash in his shoulder.

"_Gorram_, why didn't ya tell me?" Jayne snarled, checking his arm. Blood dribbled out, staining his shirt, but otherwise he was fine.

"Too busy satiating masculine triumphant instincts to hear the crazy person warn you," she replied, whipping them around another corner. The comm warbled, and she picked it up as Jayne brought Vera to bear again.

_"Hey, you guys still alive?" _came Mal's voice.

* * *

_"Captain," _came River's voice, and Mal gave a tiny sigh of relief, right before putting a round between another mercenary's eyes. _"We are being pursued."_ He heard gunfire and cursing on the other end. _"Jayne is letting his untrained man-ape-gone-wrong-thing-self address the issue."_

Mal kept running, as Zoe slit the throat of another mercenary up ahead, before kicking the man off the back of his ATV. Bullets kicked up dirt and tore chunks out of the building beside Mal as he ran, firing over his shoulder.

"Got Wash on the comm, told him to lift off and meet us," Mal reported, spinning and firing, taking a pursuer in the wrist and making him drop his weapon. "Where are you?"

_"Uncertain," _River replied_. "Focusing on evading pursuit. Edge of town, judging by scarcity of buildings."_

"Get out of town, so Wash can pick you up with _Serenity_!" Mal yelled, leaping on the back of the ATV. A round cut through his jacket, and he returned fire as Zoe gunned the engine.

_"Understood," _she replied, and the connection cut out.

"River seem a bit odd to you?" Zoe asked as they sped away. They heard engines rev up behind them, and more ATVs with angry mercenaries appeared to their rear.

"More than usual?" Mal replied. "Calm, for once. Guess that's a good thing." He punctuated his sentence with two shots, and then his pistol clicked. Cursing, the captain began to switch cartridges when Zoe swerved around a corner, making him drop the cartridge and nearly lose his weapon as well.

"Watch where you're-" Mal began, when something roared behind them on a trail of exhaust, screaming up the road they'd just been on.

"Was that-"

"Yes, sir," Zoe replied.

"You mean that they-"

"They did, sir."

"That was a _gorram rocket launcher_!" Mal screamed, a tiny bit of panic starting to worm its way into him as he realized how _serious_ these people were. "They're using _xi niu rockets_ on us! Who in the ruttin' hell _are_ these guys?"

* * *

"Military-trained, certainly." Book's remark was calm and cool, and Simon found it comforting when he was blinded by the sparks from bullets slamming into the metal crate he was crouched behind. Two quick shots from Book, and another opponent went down screaming. Simon sprayed a couple of bursts over the top of his crate. 

"And they're pretty determined to take the ship," he muttered, and the Shepard nodded.

"Cover me, we need to disperse, in case they have grenades." Book's statement on the possibility of a quick, fiery death was disconcertingly calm, and Simon found himself rising and firing before he'd really registered the macabre logic of splitting up like that. By the time it _did_, Book was on the other side of the cargo bay, plugging away at their attackers from behind the crates on the port side.

Two of the men were down, all of them on the ramp outside the cargo bay, but the remaining ten were still trying to enter the bay. Simon had to pause to reload, and in that time two of the intruders rushed forward. Book popped one in the leg as he entered the bay, and he dropped to the floor, crying in agony. The second nearly reached cover before he jerked, a black shaft burrowing into his chest with a vibrating green feather on the end.

Simon glanced up, and spotted Inara on the catwalk overhead, loading another bolt into the torque bow she'd used in the battle against the Reavers. The doctor quickly shifted his aim back toward the invaders, and his heart sank as he saw them joined by another group of troops. Now more than ten men were trying to press their way into the bay, and the sheer volume of fire they were putting out was making it hard to return fire.

Why the hell hadn't Wash lifted off by now?

* * *

"Oh, no," Wash whispered, looking at the sensor readings at that very moment. "No, no, no, _no_, you have to be _lying_ about this!" He slammed his hands down on the console and hit the comm again.

* * *

_"Mal!" _Wash screamed over the comm. Mal didn't immediately reply, driving his fist into the face of a pistol-wielding mercenary who'd rolled up alongside them. These boys were getting more and more serious with every passing moment, and there wasn't an _end_ to the _hun dans_. It was like someone had found a discount site on the Cortex for disposable goons. 

Zoe pulled away and spun them toward an alley as gunfire flashed past, a graze scratching along Mal's back.

"Wash, where the ruttin' hell are you?" Mal yelled over the radio, and then fired a shot at another pursuing vehicle.

_"They're trying to board Serenity!" _the pilot yelled back over the radio.

"Well, take off so they can't take over!" Mal replied. Zoe turned them down a busy thoroughfare filled with horses, light vehicles, and people, all of which began scattering as the gun-toting criminals screamed through with more of their ilk in pursuit.

_"There's a _minor _problem with that,"_ Wash replied. _"I can't lift now."_

"Land lock?" Mal asked as Zoe cut around a fruit cart. Two shots from Mal's pistol flew over the crowds, scoring a hit on one mercenary driver and sending him spinning out of control.

_"More explosive," _Wash replied. _"I'm picking up the active radar signature of a _surface-to-air missile_!" _Wash's yell was part amazement, but mostly bowel-clenching terror.

"Surface to . . . ." Mal said, his eyes widening. "_Surface-to-air _missile? Did he just say-"

"He did, sir," Zoe confirmed.

_"Da xiang bao za shi de la du zi!"_

"My sentiments precisely, sir."

* * *

"Hey, where the hell are we?" Jayne asked, ending his sentence with a tungsten-tipped question mark that punctured the lungs of another pursuer. 

"Dunno."

River spun them around a building, smashed through a stack of chicken cages that sent feathers and poultry flying every direction, and sideslipped around a civilian groundcar. Enemy vehicles remained tight on them. She spat out a couple of wads of downy whiteness and peered over the blood-stained windshield.

"What kinda use is a ruttin' genius if she can't tell where we are in this crap town?" Jayne fired another couple of shots as they screamed along at unsafe speeds. "And if you don't know where we are, then where ya headin'?"

"Mal wants us out of town for pickup by _Serenity_," she called back and drove them around another building. Suddenly, they were gunning toward the edge of the built-up area, only a few buildings down, and open scrubland spread out beyond.

"Dumb plan's better'n no plan," Jayne admitted, and kept firing. River pumped more power to the engine, screaming toward the edge of the small city-

-and then swerved, gasping as she sensed a malevolent presence just ahead, swinging around one of the buildings straight for them-

Noise. Force. Flying.

_Pain. Dirt in her mouth._

She was facedown on the ground. Mule crashed. Jayne was nearby, cursing as always. Dirt in her mouth, mixed with some blood.

Time to stop running.

River pushed herself up to her feet, drawing her pistol, as the enemy closed in for the kill.

* * *

"Wash, got a fix on that radar signal?" Mal yelled. Zoe took them down another alley, the walls so close they scraped the sides of the ATV. Mal kept his pistol aimed behind him, and when another pursuer started to chase them down the choke-point, he plugged him in the chest. The mercenary fell, his ATV coming to a halt and effectively closing them off from pursuit. 

That went almost as well as if he had planned it.

_"Hundred meters southeast of the pad," _Wash called over the radio. _"And, uh, Mal?"_

"Yeah?"

_"Speed things up a bit, please? We've got a whole battalion trying to get on board and I don't think Jayne would like to share his bunk."_

"I'll keep that under advisement," Mal replied, and Zoe threw the ATV ahead as fast as it could go.

* * *

The enemy had nearly fought their way into the cargo bay. Book's shots were quick and precise, and he'd left four more of the enemy writhing in pain outside the ship. The only living man inside Serenity was the first he'd wounded, who made a point to crawl behind some crates and stay out of the battle completely. 

Two more men were dead on the deck, bolts puncturing their chests or throats. Inara lingered up on the catwalk overhead, steady and still, the mechanical torque bow in her hands and waiting. From her angle, she had a perfect shot at anyone who breached the bay, but the catwalks afforded her no cover. Any position she took that let her fire out of the bay would expose her to return fire from the multitude of foes lurking outside.

Simon had worked his way back across the bay toward the doorway leading out of the common area and infirmary. The crates he was hiding behind were too close to the enemy for comfort, and Book's warning about grenades stuck in his mind, though now he cursed his own self-preservation instincts. Moving away from the weapons locker meant moving away from ammunition, and he was down to his last magazine. At least he had a decent firing position; if they moved up the ramp, he could shoot their silhouettes.

Only problem was that he couldn't seem to get the bullets where they mattered. Every time he raised his weapon at an opponent, some part of Simon's brain reminded him he was shooting at _people_, and his hands hook, and the bullets flew wild. The only person he'd ever killed before was a Reaver, and that one had been trying to rip Inara's throat out. Adrenaline, the inhuman nature of the monsters, and a healthy dose of automatic fire had combined to make Simon's first and only kill.

They were pushing up the ramp now, several of them, and Book was ducking behind cover. Inara fired, an arrow puncturing a man's skull, but as she moved to reload, two more men swept into the bay, pivoting to fire on her up above.

Simon raised his weapon and sprayed them, steadying his nerves with clarifying terror for his friend. Gunfire ripped across the bay, and both men were pitched off their feet, rounds ripping through their torsos.

Two men. He'd just killed two living, breathing men. His medical oath be damned, Simon Tam had just taken two lives in a single flash of violence.

Simon stared at his handiwork, and then was brought back to reality as Book opened fire again. The doctor raised his weapon once more, looking for a target, and he sighted a foe. He stilled himself again, knowing this is what he had to do to protect himself, his ship, and his family. Simon pulled the trigger-

_click_

-and discovered he was out of ammunition.

* * *

Two came around the mule, another scrambling over the top of the tipped-over hovercraft. Jayne was rising and firing, taking one in the leg and blowing that limb clean off. 

River put a single shot into the throat of the man atop the mule, and then went low to the dirt. A rippling wave of force shot over her, barley missing as she dropped to all fours, and then she was leaping away, a springing predator that leapt at the man, who she could see was carrying a rifle with an underslung sonic stunner.

The analytical part of her mind filed that information away, while the animal part of her mind snapped her pistol up while she was airborne. Two shots into the chest dropped the man where he stood.

Boots on the ground, minds - _several of them, ablaze with dark but controlled thoughts _- were swarming around the mule. Another came toward her, rifle leading, and her fingers snapped up over the barrel. A tug brought him all the way around, faster than he expected, and River planted her pistol against his chest. A .45 slug punched out his back, and she shoved him backward.

Jayne was cursing and firing on automatic, and she _felt_ more than heard the men he was firing at die. More rustling pages in her head, boots on metal this time, and she saw another man leaping over the mule, hitting the dirt with a weapon raised at Jayne, only a couple of steps away from her.

_Stillness_.

The barrel of the mercenary's rifle was in line with Jayne's head. His finger was hovering over the trigger for the rifle itself, not the underslung sonic stunner. A gunshot to the head would potentially trigger spasms in his nervous system, causing him to pull the trigger and splatter Jayne's relatively inconsequential brain matter. A shot anywhere else wouldn't be fatal enough to prevent him from doing the same as he died.

A heartbeat passed, the analysis ending almost before it had even begun, and by that time River was airborne, Book's words from yesterday ringing in her ears as she took the single, instinctual defensive act she knew she could perform in that instant, the only way she could protect Jayne.

He was turning toward the threat, but couldn't bring Vera to bear on the enemy in the half-second it would take him to end his life.

The she crashed into the rifle, pivoting as she met it, her pistol firing a shot into the man's throat even as she knocked the weapon aside with her own body. The mercenary jerked back, blood flying from his neck, and as he fell, his fingers closed over the trigger. The rifle fired a three-round burst, the first round flying wild, the second hitting the dirt.

The third lanced into River's flank, just above the kidney, and _**pain**_ she'd never felt before raced through her body as she crashed into the dust.

A heartbeat later, she screamed.

* * *

_That shit-hole mudder town on that shit-hole moon run by that shit-hole of a magistrate, staring down his shit-hole of a former partner as he threw insults and accusations at the biggest shit-hole of them all: Jayne Cobb. Hero of Canton. Thief, murderer, _**traitor.**

_The shotgun in the beaten, brutalized man's hands was cocked and raised, and no one in the 'verse deserved the charged buckshot more than Jayne did._

_Then that kid, that _gorram _idiot, leapt in the way._

_Blam._

_And then he was still, blood leaking out over the dirt._

_The kid had taken a bullet for Jayne Cobb, the most worthless son-of-a-bitch on that moon. _

_And as Jayne looked down at that boy, a single breathless second passed by, the implications of his death slamming into the mercenary of mercenaries like a cruiser squishing a freighter._

_At that moment, _Jayne Cobb saw red.

_The solid handle of Binky was in his hand then, and Jayne looked at Stitch Hessian, and felt only __**hate**__, at everyone and everything. A righteous wrath he had never felt before exploded out of him and flew across the distance, Binky burying into the battered old man's chest. His boots hit the dirt, and Jayne slammed into Stitch, falling wholly into the purest sin of all as he loosed his wrath on the murdering bastard._

* * *

River Tam lay on the ground, covered in dirt, her blood flowing freely from the wound and staining her colorful shirt a dark crimson. She curled up into a ball, crying in agony from the bullet she took to save him. 

The _gorram _girl who he didn't like and who didn't like him back had taken a bullet for him. For _Jayne_.

Vera was empty, and reloading was far too complex an act for the man-ape-gone-wrong-thing that was Jayne Cobb at that second. He dropped his girl, tore out his handgun to fill one empty hand, and pulled Binky from the sheath at his back. The blade trembled from raw fury, and a black-clad mercenary came around the wreck of the mule, rifle up.

Jayne Cobb saw _red_.

Binky found a new sheath in the man's chest, but only for an instant, as Jayne ripped the knife free and stabbed again, and _again_, and _**again**_, blood splashing across his face and chest and arms and he _didn't give a damn _so long as every one of these _hun dans _died.

* * *

"Got no pursuit," Mal called as Zoe slewed them around a collection of parked vehicles. His eyes were locked on their rear as she closed in on the position Wash had given them. They drove through an empty lot, cut down an alley, and burst out into another empty lot where a trio of black-clad mercenaries were standing around a flatbed truck. A fourth stood in the back of the truck, holding a shoulder-mounted missile launcher, and a fifth was manning a sensor rig in the bed beside him. 

"Looks like our boys," Zoe called back, and Mal nodded, turning and leveling his pistol as the guards spotted them. He rose in his spot behind her, both hands steadying his weapon, and his first shot took a guard in the eye. The engine roared, Zoe swinging around to bring them past, and snapped up her lever-action as they passed. She didn't have a perfect shot, but fired anyway, and a kneecap shattered, the missile soldier dropping to the bed and screaming in pain. Mal fired two more rounds as they passed, to no effect, and return fire chased them.

Zoe swung around another parked vehicle, a large tanker truck, and Mal slapped her on the shoulder. She brought the ATV to a dead halt once they were out of sight.

The remaining two guards were running toward the vehicle, weapons up, while the men in the flatbed covered them with their sidearms. They heard the roar of the ATV's engines, and when it zipped out from behind cover, they opened fire, bullets bracketing and puncturing the little wheeled transport. Dozens of bullets perforated the light vehicle, and it spun out of control, crashing against a wall and going still.

It would have been even better if Mal and Zoe had still been _riding_ it.

The captain rolled around the front of the truck, firing two rapid shots that dropped one of the soldiers, while Zoe fired her lever-action underneath the truck, blasting the second man in the gut. As he fell, Mal shifted his aim, pummeling the two men in the truck and dropping both of them.

"Wrecked," Zoe called to Mal after glancing at their distracting ATV. His response was to start jogging toward the flatbed, waving her forward, and she rose, following right behind him.

"You're driving this time?" she asked as Mal clambered into the crew cab, and Mal nodding toward the bed.

"Your turn to ride shotgun," he replied. Zoe leapt up into the bay, and her boot hit the missile launcher.

"More than shotgun, sir," she whispered, a hint of a smile appearing on her face.

* * *

The next man didn't get time to scream. Binky tore out his throat, left him gurgling as Jayne leapt past him, stabbing the oversized war knife into the chest of the next man. 

Taking a knife to a gunfight wasn't a smart move, but taking a knife, handing it to an enraged mercenary honed by ten years of putting boot to ass in all conditions and environments, and then arming him with an oversized handgun with hot-loaded tungsten-core bullets . . . well, it wasn't pretty for those on the receiving end.

Added to the mix was a badly-wounded girl, writhing in the dirt and crying in agony as she bled to death after taking a bullet for said mercenary.

Jayne Cobb was a hurricane of blades, fists, boots, and bullets. He stabbed a man in the stomach twice, ripped Binky out, and slashed the dying man's throat, before spinning him around to take a burst from one of his buddies. As the dead man hit the ground, Jayne put two into his friend's chest, and then hacked the knife through his neck for good measure.

The fifth man managed to get a shot off, but this one was with the sonic stunner on his rifle. The blast slammed into Jayne in the midst of the red and the hate, and he was slammed back against the mule's wreckage. His body went numb for half a second, and then he snapped up his pistol, putting one into the man's gut.

Two more mercenaries followed, firing their stunners as Jayne stood. Once again, he was slammed against the mule, his whole body tingling and shaking, but he stood again, raising his weapon. A gunshot flew over one of the mercenaries' heads.

Two more blasts hit him, and then _another_ pair. By this time, he was sprawled against the mule, fuming and raging and trying to make his arm rise. They stunned him again, and again. Darkness was blotting out the red, and no matter how hard he fought it, Jayne's body betrayed him, letting him slip away.

His last conscious image was of River standing, gritting through the pain, and then her being hurled to the ground by a barrage of stun blasts.

* * *

"Running low," Book called back to Simon as he changed magazines. the enemy troops were pushing forward again. "Need ammo!" 

"Okay, hold-" the doctor called, but dropped back as bullets raked the doorway. "Go se! I . . . I'm pinned down!" There was no way he could get outside in this firestorm.

"Simon," he heard a voice quaver behind him, and he glanced back, to see Kaylee crouched near the stairs beside him, terror on her face, her hands shaking. the look on her face sent a chill up his spine, and he realized that if he didn't get ammo _now_, they would be overrun, and that meant Kaylee . . . .

He burst out through the door, bullets slamming into the metal around him, and leapt toward the weapons locker. he rolled across the deck, hot metal slashing along one of his legs, but the doctor ignored the pain, scrambling for the weapon cage. He reached up, grabbing ammunition and another rifle and spun, tossing them toward Book. they clattered along the metal, but reached the Shepard's spot, and he quickly scooped them up.

Fumbling in the locker, Simon grabbed another couple of magazines for his sub-machinegun, and as he started to lean out to fire, he spotted Kaylee behind him, hovering behind the doorframe, helpless.

It took only a second for him to grab a pistol from the locker and toss it toward her. She fumbled it and nearly dropped the weapon, but took it up in shaking hands, the reassuring weight of the weapon calming a sliver of her fears.

The doctor resumed firing, and after a couple of seconds, Kaylee managed a couple of tentative shots of her own.

Then there was a blast of flame and light from outside the cargo bay, and the troops trying to storm the ship screamed and flailed. Several were on fire, others were fleeing, and two of these tried to get into the cargo bay. Simon and Inara moved fast, the doctor dropping one while the Companion struck down the other.

The flames and light faded outside the bay, and a moment later, an enormous flatbed truck rolled into place outside, with Zoe standing in the back, a smoking missile launcher resting on her shoulder.

"We are _slightly_ behind schedule," Mal admonished as he ran up into the cargo bay after Zoe. He looked around, noting the corpses, and then spotted the lone mercenary survivor, hiding behind some crates. He leveled his pistol, nearly executing the man right there, but held off, keeping him covered instead.

"Want your hands high and empty," he ordered, and cocked his pistol's hammer threateningly. The man obliged, as Zoe grabbed the intercom.

"Wash, get us airborne," she yelled, and the engines started roaring almost instantly. Simon stood, shaking as the adrenaline still pumped through his system, and stepped out from behind cover.

"Anybody injured?" he called, running toward Book, but the Shepard shook his head. He hurried over to Mal and Zoe, but aside from some close rips in their outfits, they were remarkably intact. The only injured party was the mercenary prisoner.

"Are you going to put him down or let me fix him?" the doctor asked Mal, who frowned.

"Don't reckon I've decided on that, yet," he replied, before looking up."Zoe, get Wash after River and Jayne, should be somewhere on the outskirts of town." Simon froze, suddenly remembering who else had gone on the job, and new fear gripped him.

"Oh, _God_. Are they okay?" Mal shrugged.

"Last I heard from them," he replied. "Kaylee, Inara, get over here and help the doc secure our new friend." The women hurried over, Kaylee still shaking from the gun battle, Inara as gracefully cold as ever. The Companion leveled her bow at the captured mercenary, giving Mal a reassuring nod.

"I see smoke," Wash called over the intercom. "Smoke . . . away from the warehouse, edge of town. I think it may be River and Jayne."

"Bring us around!" Mal yelled, clutching his pistol tightly as he and Zoe turned toward the cargo ramp. Several seconds passed, only punctuated by the rumble of Serenity's engines and the gasps of pain from the wounded mercenary as Simon patched up his leg.

"Coming around and setting down," Wash reported, his voice tense. "I . . . Mal, I'm not seeing any movement out there . . . ." The ship came about, and they could see the smoke rising up from multiple wrecked vehicles. They spotted the mule, tipped over on its side, and corpses of black-clad men scattered among pools of blood leaking into the dirt.

Mal and Zoe were stomping down the ramp, chased by Book, weapons up. Simon followed them a moment later, after hastily bandaging the mercenary's wound.

"Do you see them?" the doctor asked, his voice tight and worried. "Do you see River?"

"Just bad guys," Mal replied, as he and Zoe circled around the crash site. One ruined groundcar and the mule, a dozen bodies, some of them bearing some vicious knife wounds consistent with Jayne's kit.

"Don't see River or Jayne," Zoe confirmed.

"Mule's not damaged," Mal muttered. "They could have tipped it back over and just kept driving." He turned, shielding his eyes as he scanned the outskirts of the town and the horizon beyond. If that was the case, then . . . .

"They didn't recover any of their dead," Book muttered as he crouched beside the bodies.

"Wounds are fresh," Simon said, shaking his head. "These men couldn't have died more than half an hour ago."

"So, where are River and Jayne?" Mal asked, and he glanced at Zoe, both of them sharing a significant, understanding look. Dread descended upon them as they continued searching.

"They got snatched," Mal whispered. Silence struck the group as the weight of those words hit them. It was several seconds before Simon broke back in.

"How could they capture . . . ." Simon's jaw dropped as a thought hit him. "Feds? _Alliance_? They know River's safe code, they could have-"

"Not feds," Book said, hefting one of the enemy rifles, which had a sonic stunner slung under the barrel. "If they were feds, there would be Alliance ships hanging over our heads and they would have used a _lot _more manpower and firepower. This isn't standard Alliance military kit. They wouldn't leave their dead lying around, either."

"Groundcar tracks, heading back into town," Zoe called from the far side of the wreck.

"Can we-" Simon began, but she shook her head.

"No way we can track them back, they'll get lost in all the tracks from vehicles in the town," Zoe replied. The look on Simon's face shifted, terror becoming more apparent on his features. He was starting to understand. They continued looking around for several seconds, until Zoe made a discovery that chilled her.

"Mal!" she yelled, her voice tight and cold. They looked up and hurried over to where she stood, and as they drew close, she crouched, picking up-

"Vera," Mal muttered, staring at the enormous rifle. As if they didn't need further confirmation - Jayne would never have parted with his rifle willingly. He and Zoe looked at each other one more time. Now there was no question.

_"Tzao gao," _Mal whispered.

Military-trained and equipped mercenaries who weren't associated with the Alliance. Lots of them, and so intent on capturing or killing members of his crew that they'd abandon their own dead, carry dedicated non-lethal weapons, and were in such a rush to carry off the prisoners that they didn't even bother picking up a Callahan armor-piercing assault rifle with under-slung grenade launcher, one of the best weapons in the 'verse.

Everything added up into a single terrifyingly clear picture, and he almost went weak in the knees at the realization of what he'd just brought down on his crew.

"You know who's got them," Book said, his tone grave, and Mal nodded, the weight of his own responsibility hammering him where he stood.

_"Tzao gao," _he breathed again.

* * *

_"Don't make no sense."_

Haze.

There was pain, a beeping sound, and haziness in his mind. He was lying on his back, but he was elsewhere at the same time, leaning on the railing and looking over _Serenity's_ cargo bay.

_"What . . . why the hell did that mudder have'ta go an' do that for, Mal?"_

He remembered her scream, he remembered the kid, the stupid kid, and he remembered the rage, the _red_. There were voices in the background, coldness in the air, fingers and tearing sounds and cool metal poking in places it hurt.

_"Jumpin' front of that shotgun blast? Hell, weren't a one of them that understood what happened out there. Probably stickin' that statue right back up."_

Then there was silence, and the pain was still there. More beeping, and the haze began to lift.

_"I don't know why that eats at me so."_

_"Its my estimation . . . that every man that ever got a statue made of 'em was one kind of sumbitch or another. Ain't about you, Jayne. Its about what they need."_

_" . . . don't make no sense."_

Over the beeping, he could hear _breathing_, and as his gaze focused, he saw white. Clean, cold, antiseptic white, like an infirmary. No, wait, it _wa_s an infirmary. Not the cargo bay, not talking with Mal while playing with Binky, thinking about that stupid kid.

For half a second, he thought he was back on the boat, but this wasn't _Serenity's_ medical ward. It was bigger, with multiple beds, and, he realized as he tried to move his arms, he wouldn't be strapped down half-naked. Well, not unless he'd pissed off Mal something serious. There were bandages taped to his skin, where he'd been shot and gashed and bruised, and the beeping was a heart monitor. A couple of seconds later, he realized there was a second monitor running across the room.

A whispering sound tickled his ear, and Jayne turned his head to the left, to see another bed parallel to his. Strapped down to it and stripped down to shorts and underthings was River, limp and still. Her eyes were wide open, and she was staring at the ceiling, her mouth moving slowly, skin paler than usual. A single gunshot wound was visible on her flank, cleaned and patched up.

"Hey," he hissed, looking around the room. It was big enough for a half-dozen folk, and there were no guards inside, though most likely outside . . . .

She kept whispering, ignoring him and staring at the ceiling with eyes that very slowly and deliberately blinked. As he listened, Jayne realized she wasn't talking English.

_"Ren ci de shang di, qing dai wo zou . . . ." _she said, her tiny breaths quavering in what could only be stark terror. "_Wo xiang mei er, mei xin, bian shi tou . . . ."_

The words sent a chill down his spine that had nothing to do with the cold temperature. He knew those words, and he remembered when she'd last spoken them. No, _spoke_ wasn't the right word.

Prayer. Girl was _praying_.

Jayne Cobb didn't feel real fear often, but the _gorram_ crazy girl was a reader, and if she was freaking out like she had on Miranda, even quiet-like, then he had plenty reason to be worried. His hands started working in the plastic straps, trying to get some purchase. Whoever had snatched them, they needed to get away _now_.

"Stone. Make me into a _stone_. . . please, God, don't want to _feel_ it . . . ."

He struggled, jerking and twisting, his grunts drowning out her near-silent pleas. He got maybe half an inch of skin pulled up inside the cuff on his left hand side when he heard her start sobbing.

"Going back. Going _back_. Cutting and twisting. But not for good work, not for any work. Just for him. Just for _business_. He's coming to make sure _business _is still _running_."

"Business?" Jayne echoed, and the cold gripping his spine spread toward his heart. No. No, _no_, _gorram it_, not who he was thinking of. Not _him_.

_"Ren ci de shang di, qing dai wo zou . . . ."_ Her eyes were closed, and she was shaking, the words stammering out of her lips. _"Ren ci de shang di, qing dai wo zou, ren ci de shang di, qing dai wo zou . . . ."_

The door to the medical bay slid open, and she went silent. Jayne stopped struggling, and he looked up.

_No._

The skinny shape, the immaculate business suit, that horrible, horrible nose, those tiny round glasses, and the happy smirk of raw malevolence.

The little man leaned over Jayne Cobb, grinning like a child in a candy store.

_Adelei Niska._

"Sweet mother of mercy," Jayne hissed.

"_Wo xiang mei er, mei xin, bian shi tou . . . ." _River whispered, closing her eyes and trying to roll up into a ball.

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** Well, _shit. _

Remember when I said that this story arc was going to get dark? _I weren't jokin'_.

"Unfinished Business" now has an alternate title: _"War Stories: Electric Boogaloo."_ I'll admit, right off the bat, that this story arc is cribbing a tiny bit on the basic plotline of "War Stories," though only insofar as "Niska has captured members of Serenity's crew. Torture, gunfights, and other assorted hilarity ensue." Since its River and Jayne being captured instead of Mal and Wash, however, expect some_ serious_ complications to ensue, and there's a few more plot twists to throw in as well.

Also, I think I killed more goons in this chapter and the last one than were killed in "War Stories" and "Heart of Gold" put together. Ah, the joys of having the entirety of Serenity's crew taking up arms and putting boot to ass. Additionally, that wounded mercenary captured by the BDHs? Pay attention to him, because he's going to factor in pretty heavily over the next few chapters.

A note about River: in an effort to keep her interesting in combat and keep her from transforming into _Serenity's_ Mary Sue "fix-everything" character, I've opted to _use_ the fact that she's a crazy, emotionally unfiltered traumatized brainwreck of a ninety pound teenager. She's a glass cannon; packs a massive whallop, but one good, solid hit can take her down - complication here, of course, is that you have to actually _hit_ River, which is harder than it sounds. She may be able to take a few minor hits, but get a serious blow in, and she's going down, _hard_. That's really how I've always viewed her, and how she'll play out in this series. There are also some other weaknesses she'll have, to help keep her from effortlessly steamrolling the bad guys; one of them is hinted at elsewhere in this chapter. I just feel that its not very satisfying to read about a character surviving and winning if there's no danger to that character; the chance that they can lose is a big part of suspense, and I'm going to keep that in place in this story. River is badass, but she's far from invincible, and is still a very vulnerable person.

Next chapter, we start heading into the tunnel. Its gonna be a bit before we get back to the light . . . .

Until next chapter . . . .


	5. Chapter Four: Business

**_Author's Note: _**This chapter and the next couple afterward are rated_ **M**_ for somewhat graphic violence. Nothing worse than what you probably saw in the roughest moments of "War Stories," but I feel the warning is required. We are dealing with Niska, here. We're rolling down the tunnel, kids, gonna be a few chapters until the light.

**_

* * *

_**

_**Chapter Four: Business**_

Mal stormed up the ramp as Zoë brought the mule back inside. He spun as he came in, pointing at his mechanic, and the voice that emerged from his lips was low, deadly, and absolutely serious.

"Kaylee, get on the bridge with Wash. Check port records and sensors, tell me if any ships are lifting or lifted in the last half hour." She nodded, confused, as Book and Simon came up the ramp after them, carrying the dropped gear Jayne and River had left behind.

"Zoë," he yelled as she secured the mule, pointing at the downed mercenary. "You and Doc take this _hun dan sumbitch _and tie him up. Get him to the infirmary and fix him, but keep an eye on him. I want him healthsome."

"Aye, sir," she replied, her voice as dark as Mal's. Kaylee and Inara looked around, both confused and worried at the swift and lethal shift in Mal, Zoë, and Book's demeanors. Simon, for his part, looked as if his heart was trying to ju-jitsu its way out of his chest.

"What happened?" Inara asked. "Where are Jayne and River?"

"They got snatched," Mal replied. "Those men worked for Niska."

The mechanic's hand flew up to her mouth, and Simon stopped in his tracks, new horror spreading over his features as the realization hit him. Kaylee stared at Mal, shaking her head.

"What?" Inara asked, shocked and in absolute disbelief. "You mean . . . _Niska_? The man who kidnapped you and Wash?"

"No, no, Captain, gotta be wrong," Kaylee said. "They can't be . . . ."

"River is in that _monster's_ hands?" Simon exclaimed. "He . . . he took _River_?" He was hurting enough knowing that she had been captured, but this was something completely different.

"Yes, Doc," Mal replied evenly, trying to retain control. "That's why _Kaylee_, I need you helping Wash find what ship he hauled them off to, and _Doc_, I need you making sure his man here is healthy so I can suss what I need out of him when the time comes. _Dong ma?_" They nodded, but hesitated, and he reached out, putting a hand on their shoulders.

"I'm gonna find her," he said, the conviction in his voice rooting them in their places. "I'm gonna find Jayne. And this time, there's not gonna be any unfinished business between me and Niska." He stepped back and started away, leaving Kaylee and Simon to watch him. His stride, the set of his features, the way he carried himself, and the tone of his voice . . . .

"Haven," Inara breathed, and the others understood.

Mal was on Haven again. This wasn't just personal, it was _family._

* * *

They were thorough. They didn't know what she could do, but they'd gotten the reports from the survivors. Needles of **sap** were jabbed into her and she slowed, gummed down, unable to raise her hands when they undid the straps. She was hauled off the bed by rough hands, her arms yanked around and secured tightly at the small of her back, high up so that she couldn't twist around and get them in front of her. They bound her feet too, and slipped a blindfold over her head, cutting off ocular input. Not that it mattered.

She could taste the pain in the air, and the little man, _the old killer_, the crime lord who reveled in agony, was smiling still, beaming over the prizes he'd taken hold of.

Jayne was drugged and bound the same way, and then they started dragging the pair. They passed down cold metal corridors, thrumming in the deck beneath them that told her she was on a ship, going hard burn. **Medium freighter**, about six times the size of _Serenity_. Couldn't tell class by the engines yet, too much pain weighing down the air, and it was getting _thicker_.

A stone. She _wanted _to be a stone. She could smell and taste and hear what they were planning, the blood leaking down her face from their minds, flooding her nostrils. She bucked, but her veins were thick with fluids and glue and sap and she couldn't fight them as they carried her and Jayne down the passages. He was cursing and yelling, struggling as best he could, four men dragging him along while only two carried her by her arms.

The pain was **physical**, jamming into her brain, screaming and cutting like she'd endured at that _place_, at the _reprogramming, _the making of her into a _thing_ a _**machine killer **_**assassin hunter**_-seeker mind _penetrating-

She screamed as they dragged her into _the room_. Then she felt cold metal, tape applied to points on her chest and stomach, and the blindfold was ripped off as she was still, locked down just like before. Harsh light cut down from above, and the old man, _his hands dripping in blood that never touched him_ **smiling**.

Jayne was being pulled inside, strapped to the rack beside her, and she caught a flash from the old man's mind: Mal and Wash, stripped down, beaten, broken, strapped to an identical frame, and the old man laughed as they had screamed.

A stone. She **had** to be a stone. She knew what this man wanted, and she knew a stone would never give him that. She _begged_ to be a stone, asking God with her mind and sometimes with her lips as they fastened her to the rack, Jayne snarling and cursing and making enough noise for _both_ of them.

Then, the _**bloodstained**_ old man spoke.

* * *

"Listen to me, you horse-humpin' _go se _chuggin' sack of _shit_!" Jayne snarled, lurching forward in his restraints. If he could only get a couple more inches, he could bite the bastard's nose, or maybe go for his throat, but the little old man was probably well aware of that. 

"When I get out of here, I'm gonna rip your head off and play spaceball with it," Jayne continued, keeping his gaze firmly locked on Niska even as they attached the wires to his chest. Niska's smile simply expanded, and the old man gestured to one of his men, a burly fellow with shaved ahead and a fist wreathed in brass knuckles. Said fist rose and crashed into Jayne's jaw, knocking his head back and making him black out for an instant. He slumped in his restraints, and as he struggled to rise back up, he felt fingers brush his.

The mercenary looked to his left, and he could barely see a tangle of dark brown hair and the edge of the girl's shoulders, and a shudder ran through him as he tasted blood in his mouth, and the pain in his jaw began to make itself noticed.

"Now then," the old man finally said, his thick, reedy accent intruding into the silence his goon had bought. "There has been enough talking from you for now. Now it is Niska's turn, yes? You will get plenty of time to tell me everything later, so, we have no hurry."

The gangster walked around the rack, peering at both Jayne and River, scratching his chin. Jayne met his gaze, refusing to give even an inch to the bastard, while River avoided his gaze completely, eyes locked on the floor. She was terrified, Jayne knew, and he couldn't blame her; then again, she probably knew he was just throwing up a wall of solid masculine bravado to cover up the welling terror clawing in his own chest. He remembered the man hanging from the ceiling when they'd been given the train job, and he knew, deep down, that he was headed for the same place.

"It has been some time, yes," Niska said, stepping in front of Jayne. "Jayne Cobb. I _remember_ you. You were with Captain Reynolds when he came for the train job. I remember you were very impressed when I showed you what happened to those who betrayed my trust." Mal would have had a smart remark, but Jayne didn't reply, instead simply wishing Niska was a step closer. Petty revenge, but it would be worth it.

"A very impressive man," Niska continued. "Very solid. Dangerous. _Respectable_. This," he turned to one of his men, smiling, "is a good catch. Captain Reynolds will be very unhappy to know we have taken his big shark, yes?"

"Come a bit closer, an' I'll show you what this shark's teeth can do," Jayne hissed, and the old psychopath laughed.

"I am not a stupid man," Niska replied, shaking his head. "Many hours I spend, looking at the videos from your raid. Reading your files. Very remarkable crew that Captain Reynolds has assembled. His talent is in making _solid_ crew." He paused, and then turned, his eyes falling on River.

"But . . . there are gaps, I think." He stepped around in front of her, his expression shifting to curiosity, and he reached up. His fingers closed around her jaw, almost delicately, and Niska raised her face up toward him. She kept her eyes closed, not meeting his gaze, but even Jayne could feel the trembling terror that she couldn't control, vibrating the rack.

"Many hours," he repeated, his voice thoughtful. "I see all of your crew, but this girl is not on the videos. The cameras in the dock, destroyed in the explosion, so perhaps I miss? Tell me, little one, what is your name?"

She clenched her teeth, even as her lips trembled, and remained dead silent.

"Ah, so she wishes to _remain_ a stone," Niska mused, smiling, and he released her. "Yes, I hear your prayers, little one. That is fine. You will tell me your name, at least, by the time we are finished." He turned toward Jayne. "A curiosity. Why does Captain Reynolds have a young girl on his ship? She cannot be even of civilized age, maybe? Yet he brings her with him on a dangerous job, gets her captured by my men. A very strange oddity." He paused, and smiled again.

"Perhaps the Captain, he _likes_ little girls?"

Jayne didn't give Niska he satisfaction of answering, though he knew the moment the old man stopped talking, the screaming would start. He gritted his teeth as the bastard waited for a reply, but some part of him fervently wished he would hold off, and not just for his sake. The _gorram_ girl was shivering, and he could feel her fear and helplessness, even though he wasn't a reader himself.

After a few seconds of silence, neither of the prisoners answering, Niska sighed.

"So, you shall remain silent. That is unacceptable. Mikhail, three seconds, please?"

Jayne's body jerked an instant later, sparks of savagery flying up his body, lightning lancing through his nerves and making him groan in pain through his teeth. Beside him, it was far worse; River's body shook violently, and he heard her scream in agony, and shuddering and piercing cry that slid under his skin.

It ended, mercifully quickly, and Jayne raised his eyes, glaring hate and violence at the smiling bastard. It only lasted for a second, as Jayne moved his attention toward River, who was slumping in her restraints, head down, her head slowly shaking back and forth.

"Now, perhaps, we shall see how important you really are to Captain Reynolds, yes?" the old son-of-a-bitch mused. "Volsky?" The goon with the hands sheathed in metal stepped forward, smiling, and tapped his knuckles, before turning toward River.

Jayne closed his eyes, tensing, trying to not hear the impact and her pained grunts.

* * *

Simon's head whirled as he struggled toward the infirmary, the captured mercenary on his shoulder, moaning with each step until Zoë cocked her rifle, warning the man to be silent. 

The doctor couldn't focus. He knew Mal had given him orders, but those orders seemed distant and useless in the face of the horror he felt at that moment. His sister had been taken by Niska. _River_.

He almost let the man slip and fall. He didn't want to do anything, just sit down and shake and fume and let his emotions boil and flow and sort themselves out. An intense weight of helpless fear and failure hung over him, bearing Simon down into the deck. He'd failed River. He'd sworn he would protect her, keep her safe, no matter what happened. It had been that promise that had driven him to take her from the ship, and it was that promise that shook him whenever she left without him.

That promise had been broken, and he'd spent so much of himself trying to keep her safe that Simon felt _nothing _was left

They were inside the infirmary, somehow, and Simon was pushing the mercenary toward the table. Zoe was following, but as they passed through the door, she was out of line of sight for a heartbeat, and Simon was so caught up in the blur of his self-inflicted sense of failure that he didn't see the fist coming until it cracked his jaw.

The doctor was spinning around, hitting the antiseptic floor, and the mercenary was spinning toward the door. Without really thinking, Simon kicked out, striking the man's leg, and he dropped to one knee, screaming in pain as his wounded leg hit the deck.

The cock of a rifle silenced the yell, and the captured man was looking up at Zoe, who glared jets of liquid nitrogen from behind the sights of her rifle.

"There's a very solid reason I haven't already put a bullet in your brain," she hissed. "You know why the Captain's kept you breathing this long; its up to you to determine how long you _stay_ breathing." She looked up at Simon. "Doc, okay?"

"Fine," he replied, rubbing his jaw, and then standing up. He grabbed the mercenary and hauled him to his feet. He pushed the man to the table and strapped him down, and then paused, closing his eyes.

"Doc, we need you to get past this," Zoe whispered, putting a hand to his arm. "River's life is at stake. I know you're worried about her, but we need you functional. Can you do your job?"

Simon inhaled, clenched his hands, and opened his eyes, looking to Zoe. He probed her gaze, seeing the firm, hardened resolve behind them, and nodded. The emotions were pushed back, and he started sliding into cold, clinical doctor-mode, before beginning to work on the captive's leg. Zoe kept the prisoner covered the whole time. The doctor peeled off the blood-soaked bandages and began probing for the bullet, ignoring the cries of pain from the mercenary. Ordinarily, Simon would have administered painkillers.

_Ordinarily_.

Pity and humanity were pushed away, replaced by clinical detachment, and a cold, harsh kernel of anger.

* * *

The bridge was quiet; Kaylee sat at the copilot's station, her fingers clicking over the keyboard, and the mechanic didn't speak a word. She'd gotten over her initial shock at the news, but the cold dread was still there; she had no idea what the Captain and Wash had gone through, but she'd seen what condition they'd been in when they'd been rescued. Imagining that Jayne and especially River going through the same ordeal was almost too much. 

The Black continued to float past outside as Wash silently guided them out of atmo and into orbit. He hadn't spoken a word either, beyond his initial horrified reaction when Kaylee had broken the news. As always, Wash was the last to learn the grim news. When Kaylee had come into the bridge, he'd been worried, because of the smoke and debris around where the mule had wrecked.

"Did you find them?" he'd asked, hopefully, to which she hesitated, not sure how to break the news. " . . . Kaylee?"

The fear and trepidation must have shown on her face, because it began to appear on his as well.

"Kaylee, what happened?" he asked again, and she found her fingers fumbling together, unsure what to tell him.

"It was Niska," she blurted, and his eyes widened.

"Niska?" he echoed, jaw dropping. "Those men were . . . _Niska_?" She knew what he'd gone through at that gangster's hands, but knowing that just made Kaylee want to start crying even more.

"They . . . they got River and Jayne," she said after a second, her voice breaking. A heartbeat passed, the realization striking Wash in his seat.

"No," he breathed. "_No_." He spun around in his chair, looking away, and a shaking hand rose to his mouth. Kaylee stood at the entrance to the bridge, not sure what to do or say, and then his hand flew up, flicking the switches by his head.

"Captain wants us to go after them," the pilot muttered after a moment, and Kaylee nodded. It wasn't a question.

"Sure as the sky," she replied, and he nodded.

_"Good."_

That had been nearly half an hour ago, and Wash hadn't spoken since. Here they were, in the Black, the stars floating past, alone together on the deathly silence of the bridge.

"You find anything?" Wash asked after a few minutes, and Kaylee looked up, biting her lip.

"Three ships left the port 'bout the time they got pinched," she replied. "One was a little boat, smaller'n _Serenity_, can't be them. Other two were bulk freighters, but they're flyin' off on different routes."

"One of those has to be them," Wash said, his voice tight, and he looked over the navigational trajectories. "Gotta figure out which one, before . . . ." He shook his head, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes.

"Cap'n'll find 'em, Wash," she said, trying to reassure him, but the pilot looked unconvinced.

"Yeah, just . . . ." He looked down at his hands, and then turned toward the copilot's seat. He stared at Kaylee for a few seconds, and then looked down at his plastic dinosaurs.

"She was sitting in that chair yesterday," he whispered. "You didn't see her. She was scared, shaking, helpless, and when I think of what that _pi gu _is going to do to her . . . ." Wash touched his chest, and then looked down at his arms, shuddering.

"We're not leavin' 'em behind, Wash," Kaylee said, as firm and determined as she could, and he looked back up, setting his teeth.

"I know," he replied, shaking off the ugly moment of reminiscence. "I know."

The console before him buzzed, and he looked up. His hands flew over the keys, and he turned back to the screen-

_"Hun dan,"_ Wash said, reflexively leaning back, eyes widening.

* * *

She heard the clicking from within his bunk, and paused outside the ladder, before taking a deep breath. Up the crew hallway, she could hear Wash and Kaylee talking as they ran over sensor records. Book was somewhere down below, with Zoë and the Doctor and their prisoner. That left him alone, to brood in his bunk, and she knew well the sound of him stripping and cleaning his weapons. 

Inara tapped on the outside of his bunk, but he didn't reply. After a few seconds, she pushed the door open and started climbing down the ladder. Mal didn't even look up as he ran a black vizzy cloth over his disassembled pistol's components, and the Companion stood beside the ladder, uncertain for a moment.

"Mal," she finally said, taking a step toward him.

"Don't need to hear nothin' right now, 'Nara," he whispered, and the deadly, cold intensity in his voice froze her in her place. The temperature in the bunk seemed to chill a dozen degrees as he finished with the vizzy cloth and snapped the barrel back in place.

"Mal, this isn't-"

"My fault?" he snapped, looking up. Behind his eyes, there was deep emotion, a mixture of rage and hate and anger, and all she could see of it was turned inward.

"I refused the train job," he whispered, dropping his pistol on the bed and grabbing another. "I put that _hun dan _through our engine. I brought this down on us all, and I had a proper inklin' of the consequences, but that didn't mean a thing at the time. And now . . . ."

He closed his eyes, the pistol halfway disassembled in his hands, and ripped the pieces of it into the bed.

"Jayne can handle himself. Tough as nails and eaten ten times what Niska might do to him," he whispered. "But River . . . girl's still just a _kid_. Kid who's gone through enough, and _I'm_ the one who got her into this." He looked up at her, and pain was stitched across his features, his lips pressed together.

Inara did the only thing she could, and reached forward, putting a hand on his shoulder.

A long moment of silence passed in that bunk, the coldness vanishing. The tenseness in Mal's body both seemed to both fade and increase a hundredfold in that prolonged, heavy breath.

"Captain!" Kaylee then yelled from upstairs, and he jumped to his feet. They were up the ladder in a couple of seconds, rushing to the cockpit.

"What's happenin'?" Mal asked, and came up short as he saw the white faces of both his pilot and his mechanic. Wash had turned around completely, looking down at the deck.

"We . . ." Wash hesitated. "Got a wave. From _him."_

There was a moment of deathly silence on the bridge, and then Mal gestured. Wash stood up, and the captain slid into the pilot's chair, facing the camera mounted over the video screen. The monitor displayed only a blank blue background until he flipped a switch, and then . . . .

The old bastard with his little glasses was looking back at him.

"Ah, Captain Reynolds," Niska exclaimed, his mouth spreading open in one of the most poisonous grins Inara had ever seen. "I see you are still alive and most healthy! This is very good news. Very . . . _exciting_."

"Where is my crew?" Mal rumbled, his voice dark and low. Niska's smile grew, if it were possible.

"Ah! You have answered a question I was wondering myself," he replied. "The little girl that my men shot, beat, and brought back to me, so broken and pitiful. I was uncertain if she was part of your crew or not, but you have answered that oddity."

Mal kept his face as rigid as a mountain wall, giving nothing away, but Inara could see that white-knuckled hands were gripping the armrests of the chair. Behind her, she heard a gasp, and looked over, to see Kaylee shaking behind her, hands covering most of her face.

"River," the mechanic whispered, and the Companion stepped over to her, pulling the girl into a comforting hug.

"Now that I have confirmation, I can banish this tiny bit of guilt I have been feeling as I hurt her," Niska continued. "But at least I knew that the large man was yours. Jayne Cobb, yes? A strong one. I suspect he may survive a few days longer than the girl at, eh, the rate we are_ progressing_."

"Let me see them," Mal said, his fingernails digging into the armrest.

"Of course!" Niska gestured, and the camera panned, showing-

_"Tzao gao," _Wash whispered, and Inara pulled Kaylee aside so she didn't see the images on the screen.

Jayne was covered in bruises and welts, his lip bleeding and one of his eyes blackened. Cuts, gashes, and bullet wounds, all hastily patched up, were evident on his body. He was standing straight in his restraints, glaring defiantly at Niska and his men, and as he saw the camera face him, the mercenary snarled. A wad of spit flew across the room, hitting one of the guards, who immediately hauled off and smashed a metal-knuckled fist into Jayne's face.

River was slack in her restraints beside him, eyes closed, panting heavily. Sweat covered her stripped-down body, as with Jayne, and several bruises and scrapes were visible on her body, along with another gunshot wound in her side. Tangled hair, matted with blood and sweat, covered much of her face. She was pale, and the rack was far too big for her tiny, trembling frame.

The camera focused on her, and then her head snapped up, eyes opening, the irises boring directly into Mal's own gaze.

"I can see you," she whispered, and her face shifted, her eyes showing a glimmer of something else, and for the first time in the exchange, Mal's stony visage began to waver. It slid right back as Niska reappeared on the monitor, ever smiling.

"As you can see, they are mostly intact, for now," he explained, and then gestured to someone off-screen.

Both Jayne and River shot up, screaming and thrashing as electricity shot through them, and Wash visibly recoiled, turning away from the monitor. Kaylee pulled Inara tighter and started crying into her side, while the Companion herself looked away, clenching her teeth and closing her eyes.

Mal didn't blink.

The screams stopped a moment later, and Jayne came out of snarling and cursing. River went limp again, panting and shivering.

"Let them go," Mal said a moment later, his tone at that exact same level of low lethality.

"Why should I?" Niska asked, the camera turning back toward him. "They are providing me with much amusement now."

"Let them go, and you can have _me_," Mal continued. "No fight, no fuss. Even trade."

"Two for one?" Niska said, shaking his head. "No, no, that is not a fair trade at all, Captain Reynolds."

"This is between you and me, Niska," Mal continued. "No need to get others involved."

"Incorrect," Niska said, his smile vanishing. He leaned closer to the camera, looming in the monitor. "Your crew chose to invade _my_ skyplex. They are _all_ guilty of crossing Adelei Niska." He snapped his fingers, and the screaming and electrical popping began again. When it ended, Niska's smile had begun to return.

"And more importantly, Captain Reynolds, you are still a soldier," the old man added. "You still fight the war, you still defend Serenity Valley. Your crew, your _men_. They are all part of you. Cut any one, and I cut _you_." He took a step back, and raised one hand, which now held a wicked, curved knife. As the camera focused on the old man, he stepped around beside Jayne.

"I'm gonna make you eat that gorram knife, you son of a-" His threat ended with a cry of pain as Niska drew the blade down the mercenary's arm, cutting a long, shallow gash in his bicep. On the other side, River recoiled, shaking her head and sobbing.

Niska turned back toward Mal, and his smile was almost wrapping around his withered old face.

"Now, you understand," Niska stated, putting the knife down on a table as his goons moved to patch up the cut he'd inflicted. "And with understanding, we are ended. Goodbye, Captain Reynolds. I shall arrange for you to pick up what is left of them, when we are finished here." The wave cut off, the screen going dark.

Silence hung over the bridge, a heavy and wet blanket of tension smothering words for a long while. Finally, the pilot's chair turned, and the man sitting there was not the Malcolm Reynolds they knew.

He rose to his feet, hands clenched so tight that his fingernails were almost cutting into his palms. The pain and self-hatred Inara had seen before were gone, replaced by something else, something _terrifying._

Inara had been wrong in the cargo bay. Mal hadn't been at Haven when he'd walked up those steps. He was on Haven _now_, and back in Serenity Valley at the same moment. She looked into those eyes, and saw the man who would turn his beloved home into an abomination, ripping it apart and strapping skeletons of dear friends to its bow to pass as a Reaver, so he could strike at the Alliance. She saw the side of him that only war itself could bring out.

Inara looked upon him, and saw the _real_ Malcolm Reynolds, buried underneath all the contradictions and facades and masks.

He turned and strode down the stairs leading down into the cargo bay, and despite the shock they were feeling, Wash, Kaylee, and Inara started to follow, but came up short as he turned around.

"This is only 'tween me and the Doc," he growled, and no one argued.

Mal stomped down the stairs alone, his boots ringing against the metal grating as he descended to the cargo bay, and headed toward the infirmary. They passed Book, who looked up from his Bible and then shot to his feet, reading the savage intensity in Mal's gait.

Zoë was standing outside the infirmary, where Simon was patching up the captured mercenary. She took one look at Mal's expression, and stepped aside, letting him through the doorway.

"Captain," Simon said, still focused on his patient. He looked up as he finished suturing the leg. "I still need to . . . ." He trailed off, seeing Mal's expression, and on the table, the mercenary quailed, withering beneath that awful, intense glare.

"He healthsome, Doc?" Mal asked, and Simon nodded. "Then get him into one of the passenger dorms."

"What?" Simon asked, but Mal had already turned to Zoë.

"Get me a toolbox," the Captain whispered, his tone as frigid as the Black beyond the hull.

"I need a _hacksaw_."

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** Is that Mal channeling some Jack Bauer there? Because I think that's Mal channeling some Jack Bauer right there. 

I had a very nice discussion with one of my reviewers, and one of the things we talked about was Mal and the extremes of his character, and how far he's willing to go. I'm under no illusions as to just how _un_-nice Mal can be when he gets angry, and that's going to be a part of this story. When I said this arc would be _dark, _it wasn't just going to be regarding River and Jayne's treatment at the hands of Niska.

As an aside, I really hope I got Niska's semi-broken English down properly. I think I may have overplayed it a bit in this chapter, but I gave it a proper shot.

Updates are going to a bit further apart; I got a decent chunk of this story written over Spring Break, and I've got a bit of a buffer of finished chapters I'm tweaking now. I'll try to update once a week, like I did way back yesteryear. If all goes according to plan (yeah, right...) I'll update with new chapters on Mondays. If possible, please leave a review; I _really_ appreciate all the excellent feedback I've gotten thus far.

Until next chapter . . . .


	6. Chapter Five: The Black

**_Author's Note: _**Same warning as last chapter. This chapter is rated **_M_** for graphic violence.

* * *

_**Chapter Five: The Black**_

"You can't be serious," Simon said after a few seconds, pointedly waiting until Zoe had left to fetch the toolbox.

"Dead," Mal replied, and nodded toward the awake and now very attentive mercenary. "Can you move him?"

"Yes, his wound is treated properly, but-"

"Get him up and to one of the empty dorms. I'll get a tarp so we don't mess the padding and walls up."

"Mal, this is-"

"Are you forgetting who's captain here?" Mal cut Simon off, his voice that same low and dangerous tone that wouldn't brook questioning his orders. Simon shook his head.

"No, but I am remembering who is _sane_ around here," he replied. "And that included you before-"

"Before that sack of _go se's _boss kidnapped and started torturing your sister, and sent me a wave showing him doin' it," Mal replied, and Simon went silent, jaw opening. The look in Mal's face told him everything, and the difference between knowing it was happening and _confirmation_ shook the doctor out of his clinical mindset, launching him straight back to being a brother, who was terrified for the safety of his sister.

"He sent us a wave," Mal repeated. "We_ saw_ it. We saw her'n Jayne both, and they were hurtin' bad. Same way they were hurtin' me and Wash." He looked toward the mercenary, whose expression was rapidly shifting to terror. "Now I ain't got much in the way of leads, but I got one sittin' right here in my infirmary, and I've got a mind to use it."

There was a long moment of stillness as Simon considered all their options, and as Mal watched, he saw something shift behind the doctor's eyes, a decision made.

"The infirmary would be better for an interrogation," Simon said. "Its already clean and I've got all my medical tools on hand."

"Infirmary's open with windows on all sides," Mal replied. "This ain't the sort of thing that makes for a public spectacle." Simon nodded.

"You'll want me to supervise," he said after a second. "Ensure the subject's vitals are fine." Mal frowned, nodding as well. He caught the subtle shift.

"Don't seem like the sort of thing a doctor would agree to very much," he remarked. Simon's face locked up into a mask of stone.

"My sister is being tortured by a psychotic lunatic," he replied, his tone as icy and emotionless as Mal's. "I'm leaving mercy and compassion at the door."

"Good," Mal replied, and the door opened. Zoe came back in with the toolbox in hand, her expression calm and grim.

"Let's get started," he rumbled.

* * *

The pain was now constant, even when they weren't shocking them. The muscle spasms triggered by the jolts were tiring both of them out, and sweat was running down his brow freely. Every few minutes the guards would come over and towel them off around their restraints so they couldn't slip out, and then go right back to the electricity.

Another jolt shot through them, and Jayne let out another involuntary scream. He tried holding back, but his throat was raw and the blasts of agony were impossible to completely cut out. He heard a faint echo of a moan beside him, but other than that the girl was completely silent.

That scared him more than anything else.

The electricity was cut off, and Jayne slumped in his restraints. Had to conserve energy. As much as he wanted to stand tall and puffed-out, he couldn't keep that up and stay conscious with the torture draining him. He heard River panting quietly beside him, and turned his head during the lull, to see her slumped the same as him.

Jayne moved his hand around, brushing hers, and he was able to get a couple of fingers around about half of hers. He squeezed them, trying to bring her back, remind her he was there.

It wasn't a secret that Jayne Cobb and River Tam didn't get along perfectly; they had a history, what with the name-callings and stabbings and crushing of testicles and the treachery and all. But that didn't mean he liked seeing people hurt, especially little girls, and no matter what bad blood there was between the two of them, she didn't deserve this. She was dangerous, unpredictable, and totally insane, but she was still a little girl.

After several seconds, he felt her squeeze back, and relief was tangible, hovering before him. The next blast of agony wasn't so bad; the most painful part was her fingers digging into his hand.

* * *

Mal and Simon carried the mercenary out of the medical bay, Zoe covering the prisoner. He didn't offer any resistance, mostly because Mal had tied him up. As they moved through the common room, they passed Book, who stood outside the infirmary, absently paging through his Bible. The preacher looked up as they moved past him, giving Zoe a grim look that she returned; he understood what was about to happen, far better than most preachers would, but said nothing.

Once they had passed, though, he closed his eyes and bowed his head, starting a prayer.

They used the empty passenger dorm, the same one they'd dumped Dobson in nearly a year ago. The appropriateness was not lost on Mal as they dumped _this_ prisoner in one of the chairs.

"Zoe, stand watch," he ordered, and his first mate nodded, leaving the toolbox. Simon set down his medical kit and opened it, while Mal spread a plastic tarp over the floor. They dragged the prisoner and his chair into the middle of it, and Mal stood over the man.

"You got an inklin' of what comes next," Mal said, low and even. "So, let's have out with it. We've both fought in one war or another, I'm guessin'. You know what needs to be said."

"Winth," the mercenary said after a second, looking down at the floor. "Victor Winth. Corporal. We . . . don't have serial numbers, not that organized."

"Corporal Winth," Mal said, nodding. "You don't fight for a cause. You work for cash, same as us. You can give us what we want, quick and easy, and I'm not seein' a reason for you to hold back on that. I need the name of the ship Niska's using to carry my crew, and I need to know where its headed."

"Things aren't that easy," Winth replied, keeping his gaze on the floor. "You've seen what Niska does to people who betray his trust."

"Oh, I know very well," Mal replied, leaning in closer. Winth looked up, meeting his gaze. "I know very _gorram_ well. And two of my crew are findin' that out for themselves right now. Crew you and yours were _paid_ to bring his way. I ain't pretendin' to be a decent man, but I'm not the sort that delivers teenage girls to monsters like Niska so they can be cut and hurt and broken more than they _already_ are."

"Niska will kill me if I betray him," Winth replied, shaking his head firmly. "He'll torture me to death, and in ways that you can't imagine."

"I sure can imagine some of what he'd do," Mal replied, icy and dangerous. "He's _already_ tortured me to death once before." The captain reached down, opening the toolbox, and pulled out a hacksaw, a couple of knives, a screwdriver, nails, and a blowtorch. He laid them out, clear to see, on a towel provided by Simon.

"Like I said, you can do this quick and easy," Mal said. "But I ain't gonna shed tears if I have to get it out of you difficult."

Winth straightened in the chair, firming his jaw, and didn't reply, despite the fear apparent in his eyes. Were this a different universe, Mal would have respected a man with aspine like that. Instead, after a few seconds, the Captain picked up the hacksaw.

"Your call," he said. "Doc, gag him. Don't want to disturb the womenfolk more than need to."

* * *

Her grip was weakening, and he could _feel _her ragged breaths as the torture progressed, through her fingers and through the metalframe. Jayne looked up, meeting Niska's gaze as the savage little bastard watched his men work, sipping a glass of wine as if this was some sick spectator sport. Truth be told, it probably _was_, as far as he was concerned.

They laid off the electricity for a bit. Instead, one of Niska's lieutenants, a man named Volsky, was sharpening a wicked-looking curved knife, and applying some chemical to it with a brush. He held it out to Niska, who inspected the blade, and then nodded. With a vicious grin, Volsky stepped around and approached Jayne.

"What are ya gonna do w'that?" the mercenary grumbled though split lips. "Slice onions?"

"In a manner of speaking," Volsky replied in his thick Russian accent, and then pressed the knife edge into Jayne's left pectoral. He let it hang there for a second, before pulling down, splitting the skin and sending a searing line of pain down Jayne's stomach. Fire began to blossom in the wound, and Jayne bit back a scream for a couple of seconds, before finally crying out. It wasn't just a knife wound, it was-

"Poison," he hissed, to which Niska laughed.

"Special toxin," he explained. "Non-lethal, but _specially_ engineered to cause _max_imum pain." Jayne writhed as the fingers of sharp, heated agony festered in the cut, even as Volsky calmly applied a foam bandage sealant to the wound. This version apparently lacked painkillers.

Beside him, Jayne though he heard River sniffling, and her grip was strengthening. She was shaking, quivering in fearful anticipation.

After a few seconds, Volsky had prepared the knife again, and he stepped around Jayne, toward her.

No. No, he couldn't let them do that to her. Girl didn't deserve it, and he had to-

"Hold it," Jayne hissed. Volsky didn't slow down, and River's grip tightened as the man peered over her body, looking for a good spot to cut.

"Hey, I said hold it!" Jayne growled, twisting in his restraints. She was breathing faster, her grin hurting his fingers, and then Volsky pressed the knife into a spot on her stomach, the same place he'd jabbed Jayne.

He closed his eyes and squeezed her hand as tightly as he could, right before he heard skin slice and her scream. The rack shuddered as she recoiled, and after a few seconds the scream faded to agonized sobs. Jayne opened his eyes, looking at Niska, and he swore that when he got out of here, that man would answer for this a thousand times over.

Volsky was bandaging the cut as she quivered, mumbling to herself, and then prepared the knife again. He turned toward Jayne.

"Hold, please," Niska said, sipping his drink. As Volsky paused, Niska continued. "I see much hate in you, Mister Cobb. That is good. That shows chinks in armor, yes?" He let out a quiet, sinister giggle, and nodded to his lieutenant.

"Volsky. Do the girl _again_."

"Sir," the Russian replied, readying the knife to cut River a second time. Jayne's mind raced, trying to find a way to stop them. Something he could tell them to keep them from hurting her anymore.

Then, he remembered.

"_Gorram_ it, _listen_ to me!" Jayne's roar echoed off the walls of the room, and Volsky looked up, surprised at the force in his words. Jayne's glare froze the torturer where he stood, and he knew what language he could speak to make these bastards _understand_.

River jerked suddenly, and her head snapped up. He couldn't see her face, but he heard the fear and panic in her voice. She knew what he was about to say.

"No! No, you can't tell them! Not the _hands_, not the _cutting_, not that place!" Jayne grit his teeth, pushing out the pleas from the psychic girl. It was the only way to keep them from hurting her.

"You wanna know what's so special about her? Huh?" He stood up straight in his restraints, glaring at Niska. "_Two hundred thousand _is what's so special! Alliance bounty, live and _undamaged_!"

Niska's head cocked to the side, confused, and then his eyes widened.

"Fugitive?" he said, surprised, and he looked at River, who was shivering again, shaking her head and mumbling to herself. "She is wanted by the Alliance?"

"Yeah, and they don't want her hurt none, either," Jayne growled. "So, you go on and keep cuttin' on her and zappin' and beatin', and they're not gonna pay as much, _dong ma_?"

"And why would _you _be so interested?" Niska asked, curious. "I do not think that you will be getting much of cut from bounty, yes?" His smile was painful to look at. "You are concerned for girl's health, yes? River means much to you, maybe?" He laughed. "Perhaps it is _you_ who likes little girls?" Jayne managed a short, humorless laugh at the absurdity of _that_ image.

"Look, you can check," he growled. "Check the bounties, check them Alliance officials you're payin' off. They'll tell you the truth of it, I swear."

Niska seemed to consider Jayne's words for a few minutes, pacing around the outer edge of the torture chamber, before finally nodding. He spoke to the guards, and two of them stepped forward, toward River-

"Hey, what-" Jayne protested. Volsky punched him in the gut, right where he'd been sliced.

-and they removed her shaking, brutalized form from the rack. She didn't even struggle, too exhausted to fight back, no matter how much Jayne hoped for her to leap out and hammer them to bloody chunks with her bare hands. They bound her hands and feet and dragged to the side of the room, and one of them shined a light into her face, taking a couple of captures of her features with a camera. That done, they picked her up and dragged her out of the torture chamber.

"Where you takin' her?" Jayne asked, his chest tight as she was pulled away. Niska stepped around, patting Jayne reassuringly on the chest. His fingers came away bloody.

"A separate cell," he replied. "If what you speak is true, then the girl needs _special_ treatment." Jayne nearly surged forward in his bonds, but Niska was already stepping back. "We won't hurt her anymore," he added. "Unless it turns out you are lying about the bounty. But, since now I only have one person to hurt . . . ."

Volsky reappeared, his knife in hand, his grin feral and hungry.

"You shall need to pick up the slack, _yes_?" Niska walked back to his seat, drink in hand, as Volsky started cutting on Jayne once more.

* * *

Two hours later, Mal stepped out of the dorm, wiping his hands with a towel. The cold glare was still there in his eyes, but a touch of something else was present, a distant, haunted look. Zoe didn't speak as he stepped past her, giving her a simple nod, and he headed toward the infirmary.

"Captain." The voice touched Mal as he walked past, and he looked up, seeing Shepard Book sitting in a chair in the common room, his expression grim and grave.

"This ain't the place for you, Shepard," Mal said after a second. "Ain't a place of mercy." He stepped inside the infirmary, grabbing some gauze and foam bandages as Simon had asked. Book followed him into the room.

"Torture isn't the way, Mal," he said, and the captain shook his head.

"Wish it wasn't," he replied, gathering the supplies he needed. "But I ain't got a choice today."

"You always have a choice, Mal," Book replied, to which the captain laughed, cold and humorless, and stepped around the preacher.

"Not always," he answered. "This man knows how to find 'em, and I need him to talk. Only one way to get words out of lips that're screwed up tight."

"Did the war teach that to you, Mal?" Book asked, and the captain came up short. "I've seen how far you can go when you bury yourself in that place, and it will only lead to more tragedy." Mal turned, a dangerous glint in his eye.

"You are stepping down a dangerous path, Captain," the Shepherd said. "This is a road that leads only to ruin, and you _know_ that." Mal was silent, and he looked away for a second, before replying.

"Did you watch the wave recording?" Mal asked, his eyes fixing Book. There was another pause, and the preacher nodded, once.

"Wash gave it to me when I asked," he said, closing his eyes. "What Niska was doing to them was . . . _horrible_. But you should not sink to his-"

"Did you see her, Book?" Mal whispered, leaning in closer. "When she looked at you, hurtin', bleedin', shaking because of what those monsters were doin' to her, did you _look_ into her eyes?"

The Shepherd stared back, and after a moment, he took a single short, sharp inhalation.

"You _saw _it," Mal continued. "You saw what she felt right then, in the middle of that very _human_ hell, didn't you?"

"Hope," Book said, understanding, and Mal nodded.

"River is my crew," he said. "I don't care where you think I am right now. Serenity Valley or _Serenity_ in the Black, but I know what I saw in that girl, and I _am not going to betray that."_

He spun, walking back toward the passenger dorm, clenching his fists.

"I'm bringin' both of 'em home," he snarled, low, deadly, _savage_. "That ain't a just cause, Shepherd, I don't know what _is_."

The Shepherd watched him walk away, and then looked down to his Bible. In all honesty, he wished he didn't understand precisely where the Captain was coming from. But then . . . Book had stood in the same place himself, long ago.

With that understanding came a difficulty in bringing himself to stop the Captain, and Book found that the only option he had left was to pray.

* * *

Adelei Niska walked through the corridors of his ship, listening over the radio speaker in his ear as Volsky put his knife to work on Jayne Cobb. It was a delicious taste of pain, and he regretted only that he couldn't be there in person, to use the blade himself. The scent and feel of warm blood touching his fingers was a delight he rarely indulged in, one he saved for the most personal of interrogations.

It was unfortunate Malcolm Reynolds escaped before Niska could discover the _real_ him, to feel that blood and listen to the final breaths he would allow him before the agonizing end.

His guards stood aside as he neared his office, the men saluting smartly. The old man stepped inside his private sanctuary on the ship, which he had chosen as his temporary base of operations. After the raid on his skyplex, he didn't feel entirely safe in a stationary location. Here, surrounded by the Black, he was secure.

Niska settled down into his plush chair, lighting his colorful little lamp, and accessed the Cortex. It took only a few moments for his wave to reach the man in question, and a few seconds afterward, a face appeared on the screen: a middle-aged man wearing the uniform of an Alliance Captain. Behind him was the hustle and bustle of a busy office, part of a complex on the surface of one of the central planets.

"Ah, Mister Niska," the officer said, smiling. "Good morning. Is there something I can do for you?"

"Indeed, I have a predicament, Captain Pavel," Niska replied, smiling back. He had spent good money and many years building his criminal enterprise, and his contacts within the Alliance were quite plentiful - enough so that they never openly took action against his operations, and often used his ships for clandestine smuggling operations.

"I have come into possession of something of interest to the Alliance, I believe," he explained, and uploaded the pictures taken of River's face. "A bounty, I believe, for this girl?" Pavel looked down at the captures as they appeared on his screen, and his eyes widened, before he reasserted his usual businesslike frown.

"I see that she appears . . . damaged," he mused. "I will run a facial recognition, though I do recall seeing this face a few months ago on an alert . . . ." His fingers moved off-screen, and he nodded after a minute.

"Ninety-three percent facial match," he explained. "Considering the treatment she's received, it seems to be well within acceptable parameters. Let's see. River Tam, wanted by the Alliance on unspecified charges, along with her brother, Simon Tam. Posted bounty of two hundred thousand . . . wait. _Wait_ a second."

"There is problem?" Niska asked, his momentary delight at the confirmation of the bounty fading.

"The bounty was canceled two months ago," Pavel said, confused. "No statement as to whether she was captured. She's . . . not even _on_ the wanted list anymore."

"Curious," Niska said, and Pavel nodded.

"I don't know how to explain this, Mister Niska," he said with a shrug. "I'm sorry."

"That is fine. Thank you for your time." Niska cut off the wave, and settled back in his chair, frowning. So, Jayne Cobb had been telling the truth. The girl was wanted, but the bounty was cancelled. That meant it didn't matter how much he hurt her now. That thought pleased the old man, and he stood up, wanting to get back to business.

The door to his office hissed open, and one of his personal bodyguards stepped inside as the gangster stood. The man saluted, and held up a long, truncated canister.

"Is that what I suspect it is?" he asked, and the bodyguard nodded.

"Volksy's man told us where they were all hidden. Nerve gas, as expected." Niska sighed, taking the canister, and shook his head.

"I tire of these games with my lieutenants. Once we have finished with Reynolds' crew, I will deal with Volsky. I pity the loss of one as skilled as he with a blade, but it is bad business." His smile returned.

"Come," he said. "I have business with Jayne Cobb, and this fascinating little girl. I am curious as to the _real_ person beneath both of them."

* * *

"Have you found anything?" Wash looked up from the screens on the bridge, and Kaylee followed suit a second later, both of their faces confirming the grim news. Inara sighed even before Wash spoke.

"Nothing," Wash replied. "We've only got those two bulk freighters. Kaylee tried to run the registries on both ships, but we couldn't access the records on either of them."

"Have you checked their courses?" Inara asked. "One of them could be headed for Ezra."

"First thing I thought of," Kaylee answered, glum. The very first thing they had done was see if any of the ships were heading for the planet Niska's skyplex orbited.

"Neither of them is on a direct course to Ezra," Wash added. "If he's heading back home, he's taking the scenic route."

"Is there any other way to track them?" Inara asked, and both of them shook their heads.

"We've been trying to ID them for hours, but even that may not give us anything," Wash explained. "Our course is running parallel to both their courses, but sooner or later they're gonna be too far out for us to track."

"That means our only lead is . . . ." Kaylee trailed off, looking down the bridge stairs.

"The man Mal is torturing," Inara said, as blunt and clear as anyone in the room could manage. There was a heavy pall over the room at those words, ones that the other two had been afraid to speak.

They acknowledged that the Captain was a man of extremes. He was a decent man who would nonetheless go to whatever lengths to protect those he cared for, which included his family and crew. And if those lengths included torturing a man for information, they understood that Mal would do so, without hesitation - just as he was doing now. He loved them all, was willing to go however far he needed for them.

But as they stood or sat there on the bridge, the trio couldn't help but feel like outsiders. Wash, Kaylee, and Inara knew what was happening belowdecks, but they knew that Mal and Zoe and even Book were far separated, delving into a place that only they knew and understood.

For Kaylee, the fact that Simon had gone with them into that place was perhaps the most disturbing aspect of it all. To protect and save his sister, he would go as far as Mal would for any of his crew. His devotion to protecting his sister was one of the things that she loved the most about him, but at the same time . . . it was _frightening_.

Inara was torn. She had no pity for the man that Mal was hurting right now, but that Mal would go that far showed another side of him that she had never seen before. That loyalty and conviction was one of the elements of Mal she found most intriguing, but the exercise in contradictions, the complex man boiling underneath . . . She had known Mal for over a year, and still didn't truly _know _him. The Captain who protected his crew, the soldier who still fought in the war, the brigand who lived on the edge, the exhausted old warrior who just wanted to settle down and be free . . . .

Of the three, Wash understood the most. He didn't condone it, but he'd been _there_, in Niska's hands, and to think that anyone on the crew, let alone the seemingly helpless, broken girl he'd held yesterday, would end up suffering at his hands, was unthinkable. Mal had withstood the torment, saving Wash himself in the process. He owed Mal more than he'd admit.

And so they waited, hoping for the best. It was all they could do.

* * *

Twenty minutes after Niska had made the call, Captain Pavel had finished writing up a report of his conversation with the old gangster; though he accepted money from Niska to be a contact, his first loyalty was to the Alliance, not the smiling psychopath. He sent his report up the chain of command once it was completed. Short, concise, and terse, it contained all the relevant data that those in the know would need to make sense of it.

River Tam, formerly wanted on unspecified charges, considered extremely dangerous, with a reward of two hundred thousand credits for her live capture. Recently confirmed by visual verification to be in the hands of one Adelei Niska, who attempted to collect the cancelled bounty on her. Niska would apparently be keeping her for himself once he learned the bounty was now invalid.

The report traveled up encrypted channels, and the name of "River Tam" triggered an array of extremely high-level flags in the various databases and servers. Ten minutes after the report was logged, it was disseminated to a number of individuals for whom that name was extremely important. It took another fifteen minutes to arrange for an interplanetary video conference, and ten minutes for the conference to gather, analyze, and confirm the relevant facts.

The next ten minutes were the bureaucratic equivalent of open-mouthed, slack-jawed horror at the realization that _River Tam was in the hands of Adelei Niska._

It took fifteen more minutes to make the necessarily panicked calls to locate resources as close to Niska's vessel as possible and mobilize them.

An hour and a half after Niska made his call, a small but well-armed vessel plying the Black had altered its course drastically, whipping around to a new heading. Within that vessel, the commanding officer, Captain Durant, was speaking with two men who outranked his command by orders of magnitude: Mr. Armant and Mr. Domali. Durant didn't know their full names, or even if those were part of their real names, nor did he care to find out either.

"We are making best time," Durant reported to the men clad in their spotless but unremarkable suits. "We anticipate interception in six hours." Mr. Armant nodded.

"Worst-case scenarios have been considered before," he said, more to his partner than the Captain. "This is one of them."

"How much would Niska have learned from her?" Domali asked, scratching his chin.

"His reputation suggests he is capable of ferreting out a great deal of information very quickly," Armant said, shaking his head. "But Tam was trained to resist interrogation, and had that implanted directly into her mind."

"And if her psychosis is anywhere near as intense as it was when she was stolen, its unlikely she could even give up reliable information," Domali continued. "On the other hand, Niska's treatment of her could trigger a complete release of everything she's ever learned."

"You're not certain," Durant said, and Armant shook his head.

"We're dealing with a psychic who has potentially absorbed every military and political secret known to Parliament, with intense layers of physical and psychological psychosis, in the hands of a madman whose greatest pleasure is torturing people in new and inventive ways."

"Worst-case scenario," Domali added. "We have no idea what she'll do, except that Niska may have obtained information that never needs to see the light of day. Information as damaging as Miranda, or worse."

"Orders?" Durant said, and Armant looked down at the report, on the datapad held in hands sheathed by blue material.

"Once we intercept Niska's vessel, we recover River Tam," he said. "And then we sterilize the ship. _No_ survivors."

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** Uh-oh. That _can't_ be good.

I know, I said I would be updating on Monday. I kind of lied, but at the same time, this chapter is sort of connected closely to the last one. Those two chapters are almost one single big one, split in half. Don't worry, though, because come Monday, I _will_ update as well. Chapter Six is getting proofed and edited right now. So, you get three chapters for the stated price of two. Good deal.

Well, this chapter, we saw a whole lot more hurting going on. The brutality on Niska's end was a lot more overt and graphic than that on Mal's end, and that was deliberate. An important thing in this story I'm aiming for is dealing withnot simply the event but also the repercussions of the event and the effects it has on the crew. Mal's choice, Simon's acceptance, and the pain River and Jayne are going through areall going to play an important part in character development for the future.

A lot of people mentioned last chapter that they're hoping Mal gets to finish business with Niska. I'm not going to spoil anything, but Volsky and his knife are going to be_ important,_ and there_ will_ be River asskicking.

Did some editing of this chapter in response to some reviews I received that brought up valid points. I'll admit my ability to articulate is rather off at times.

Until next chapter . . . .


	7. Chapter Six: Sin

**_Author's Note:_** Standard issue **_M-rated _**warning for this chapter. Graphic violence/torture, etc. Also a "MY EYES" warning due to plenty of what I've dubbed "Riverthink" going on.

* * *

_**Chapter Six: Sin**_

"No, the blowtorch is right out. He's not intimidated by it."

Mal frowned, and looked down at the tool in his hand, and then back at the man they'd been working on. Corporal Winth sat in his chair, stripped to his waist, with numerous hastily-patched cuts and gouges on his body. He was unconscious, his clothes stained with some of his blood. On the table beside him, the hacksaw and a couple of nails sat, bloodied, alongside a few of his teeth.

"What next, then?" Mal replied, putting the torch down. He looked between Zoe and Simon, the doctor wiping his hands with an antiseptic towel. "Nails ain't workin' too well, and neither is cuttin', even with the hacksaw. Whatever Niska would do to him is damn sight more effective than what we can manage." He lowered his voice. "An' me an' Zoe aren't experts at this."

"Something I hope you're glad of. Pain isn't my expertise either," Simon admitted. "Nor is psychology. Inara or maybe Book would be better at that."

"Can't bring either of them in," Zoe replied, crossing her arms. "I think we're too far past to try to use them anyway; he won't be receptive."

"What about simple threatening?" Mal said, tapping his pistol, hanging in its holster.

"Empty, and he knows it," Zoe said, shaking her head. "We need information he has, and threatening to kill him will seem obviously fake. He might even not care, considering what he thinks Niska will do to him." Mal nodded, rubbing his chin, and wishing to hell that they had a better way of extracting information from this man. Given time, they could force him to talk, but every second meant more torture for River and Jayne, and they would get farther away - too far, eventually.

"Have we considered fractures?" Zoe suggested. "Breaking fingers, toes, shin and forearm bones?"

"That would be pretty painful," Simon replied, nodding. "Blunt and direct, but too much trauma could easily knock him out again. I don't want to pump him up with too much adrenaline to wake him up, it'll numb the pain and he might go into cardiac arrest."

"If he don't come around quick," Mal warned, "We just might have to-" They stopped as a knock sounded on the door. After an exchange of glances, Zoe stepped to the side and slid it open.

Shepherd Book stood in the entrance, his expression grave. He glanced at the beaten prisoner, but his face barely shifted in response; he had enough of an idea of what they were doing already.

"Preacher," Zoe said, short and curt.

"Shepherd, ain't lookin' for another sermon now," Mal warned, to which Book's eyes narrowed slightly.

"I'm not here to interrupt," he replied. "I'm here to help, and possibly bring a measure of mercy to this." Mal blinked, confused, and he looked toward the prisoner, and then back to the priest.

"This isn't a place of God, Shepherd," Mal reminded him. "Not sure what a holy man like yourself would do to help us here." Book shook his head.

"Wasn't born a Shepherd," he replied, and his left hand rose, holding a syringe. "And just because I serve God now, it doesn't mean I've forgotten what I knew a long time ago."

* * *

This was nonstandard. _Unfamiliar_.

No, not _unfamiliar_. Pain was still **very familiar**. Pain for the purpose of improvement, for _good work_, that wasn't unfamiliar. Pain to _**strengthen, **_burning of muscles during endless hours of conditioning, impacts and cuts and _scrapes _were familiar elements of the **ugly dances **she learned and she made to survive and improve and perform so they would _praise her _and _cut back on the drilling_.

There was a point behind this pain, but it was not for improvement. She tasted the _pleasure_ it brought, sick and inhuman and **not. Right**. This was not a good point.

_It was never a good point._

There wasn't a **pain rack **in this room. Her arms were pulled up, hanging from the ceiling by cold metal. They didn't _trust _her feet, so they'd bound them as well, but let her toes rest on the rusty, blood-stained floor while she waited. _Ninety pounds of broken dol_l got heavy after hours of dangling, they knew, she knew, the _hands _at the Academy knew.

Another blindfold to cut off her eyes, forcing her to see with _other retinas_. No deprivation of aural senses, though, and they didn't use neural disruptors. They wanted her to _**feel**_, didn't expose her to absolute sensory deprivation to gauge how far she had progressed.

alone

Hanging alone, a single slab of **meat in an abattoir**, _tangled hair _and **hurt** and _**tears**_ tenderizing the steak for the _**meal of hurt **_to come. No guards to watch her, only a single camera burning down at her. Easy to bypass if she could get free, but no tools, restraints used molding foam on the inside to keep her from slipping free. Ankles tied tight, only choice was to hang and wait for the next round of business.

_Jayne was screaming_. She felt his defiance, his _anger_, his **hate**, and his _**red**_, permeating through the bulkheads, a river into a River's mind. Beneath it all, a _hidden current _running through the torrent of thought and emotion: fear, but _not for himself_. Not entirely for himself. A kernel of terror for **her**, afraid because he couldn't protect her anymore, afraid because he might have hurt her more by trying to protect her. He understood what telling the old man about the bounty meant.

He remembered _Ariel_, and the _**screaming**_.

Presence, outside the door. An opening, _dark thoughts _swirling into the room. Taping, wires, hands on bare skin, and she _shook_ at the violating touch. The pages she read in their book-minds showed that they were back to restart **business** on their prisoner.

Blood dripping from wrinkled hands. Droplets on his glasses, running out of his mouth, his smile growing as the trickles of crimson became a torrent. He inhaled red mist, exhaled poison that seeped into the veins.

_Curiosity_. He spoke of it, walking around her. Subordinates checking equipment, fingers hovering over the keys. The old man asked questions, dull ones, ignorant. _Why the bounty? What did they want her for? Why was it cancelled? What to do with his prisoner now that she was of no value?_

Prisoner. She was a prisoner undergoing **interrogation**. That fact stabilized the _pain hurricane_ of the broken mind, swept up the glass pieces and piled them up. Memories. Training. _Response conditioning_.

She remembered. There was only one appropriate response when taken by the enemy and subjected to interrogation.

Air in the lungs. Communication in the mouth. Hurt in the throat.

"Tam. River." _Remember_. _Remember the code for their machine_. "Test subject. Zero zero zero, one three seven."

Curiosity echoed, intermixed with confusion. **Feedback loop** in his mind as he thought about her response, which strengthened the incomprehension and interest.

_What was this? _he asked. _What was she saying?_

"Tam. River." _Repetition for the dull, bloody mind_. "Test subject. Zero zero zero, one three seven."

His curiosity remained, but the thirst for pain was too much to sate. He gestured, subordinate obeyed the command, and she tensed. **Pain barriers **in the mind turned on, training she hated rising up. All instinct and survival.

Her pain was familiar. Her screams were familiar. Her shaking was familiar.

It cut off, agony lingering, and she reopened. A second to recover. Inhalation, communication.

"Tam. River." _Repeating the lines. Never reveal anything but the lines_. "Test subject. Zero zero zero, one three seven."

She heard his reaction more than _**heard**_ it, and closed herself off again. More agony. Can't stop the screams, wriggling between her teeth. Blood in the mouth, _salt taste _and _**tiny hurt **_on the side, incisors cutting her own gums.

It passed, and she wished _Simon_ was there. Instead, her vision shifted to _Jayne_. Still hurting, still being cut and shocked just like her, and still holding on. Not breaking, never breaking when the time to stiffen came.

She panted, muscles already tiring, and inhaled sharply.

"Tam. River. Test subject. Zero zero zero, one three seven . . . ."

* * *

"We'll need someone whose voice he isn't familiar with," Simon mused. He considered it for a moment, and then nodded. "Wash." Mal agreed, and hit the intercom.

"Wash, passenger dorms," he called, and the pilot sent back an acknowledgement.

"How much time are we going to have?" Zoe asked, to which Simon shrugged. The doctor looked to Book, who shared his uncertain expression. Before them was Corporal Winth, still unconscious, but now due to the chemical cocktail that Simon had injected him with. They'd blindfolded the prisoner per Book's instructions.

"If I give him a jolt of adrenaline to bring him back around, it'll begin counteracting the effects of the drug in a few minutes," Simon replied. "Though I've never used it before, so I could be wrong."

"The chemical is fundamentally similar to most anesthetics," Book added. "It only works as an interrogation tool when they're coming back around."

"So you stick him, then you wake him back up, and while he's waking up, he'll be more talkative?" Mal finished, and Book nodded.

"No more talkative than normal, but his perceptions will be skewed. That's what the blindfold is for. They keep bodyguards with state officials and people who know classified information when they undergo surgery, because during the recovery period, they are very open to suggestion. Minimal mental inhibitions."

"Preacher, you know an awful bit about getting a man to talk," Zoe remarked, to which he shrugged.

"Confessional," he replied, his tone possessing a forced lightness to it, but warning her to drop it at the same time.

Outside, they heard the sound of Wash's feet pounding on the deck, and a moment later he came into the room.

"Mal, what do you _- tzao gao!" _Wash recoiled at the sight of the battered mercenary, and looked around the room at the others. Mal gestured for him to step inside.

"Come on in," he said. "Gotta a job for you."

* * *

_Name. Rank. Serial number._

Had to keep repeating it. Couldn't give them anything else. Had to bring up the barriers each time they moved to stimulate _pain_ receptors. Barriers _**they gave her**_. In that _place of good work._

_"Government's man says you're a danger to us."_

A flicker of memory. A recollection of darkness, of confusion, of fear. Not hers, theirs. They didn't know what she was - she didn't know what she was. All she had was the violation, planted in a mind that wasn't to be toyed with.

_"Is he right?"_

She didn't know.

She wanted him there. The anchor, the _**strength**_, that kept them all in safe. The voice she remembered. The voice that comforted her then.

_"Are you anything more than a weapon?"_

There was no way to fight it except to _accept_ it. Accept what she was _made to be_. But she hated it. She didn't _want_ to be what they made her. She wouldn't be what they made her.

_Name. Rank. Serial number. _

It meant nothing. Words, _empty_, **meaningless** sounds. A metronome to hold up the barriers, to survive.

_No surrender_. Fight on, until the last breath. Fight against the pain, the questions, the things the Academy _put in_ where they didn't belong.

It was what Mal would have done. It was what Mal _did_.

* * *

It took several more minutes for the stimulants to bring Winth back around. In that time, Wash had been hesitant, but Mal was adamant that he was the right man for the job.

"But I'm no good at this," the pilot insisted.

"No difficulty here," Mal replied. "You just need to talk to him."

"But I don't know the first-"

"You're the only man on the ship whose voice he ain't heard," Mal replied. Wash was silent for a few seconds, and turned to Zoe, who patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. Wash looked back toward Mal, trying to center himself, when the Captain leaned closer.

"Book's sayin' this might be the only way to find River'n Jayne in time," Mal spoke quietly. "Holy man ain't got no place knowin' anything about sussing facts, but I'm inclined to trust him. Hate to burden you with this, but they need you."

Those words sunk in, and as they did so, Wash straightened. He took a couple of breaths, and then stepped around Mal to stand before the mercenary, who was starting to mumble something. Simon gestured for everyone to stay quiet.

"Hey," Wash said after a few seconds. "Hey, you all there?"

"I . . . " Winth's voice was slurred. "I can't . . . my legs . . . ."

"Legs got patched up," Wash said, hastily improvising as he spoke. "They messed you up good. Do you remember me?"

"Sound . . . Avery? That you?"

"I hope I am," Wash replied, forcing some lightness into his voice.

"What happened?" The drugged mercenary raised his head. "I can't see. Its all numb . . . ."

"Relax, its the painkillers," Wash replied. "We pulled you off their ship. They . . . they did a number on you." His hands were shaking slightly, and the pilot clasped them together.

"Were lookin' for Niska's ship," the mercenary said, head lolling as he tried to see through the blindfold. "Asking about it."

"That's a problem," Wash said. "Our comm got knocked out in the fight to take their ship. We don't know where Niska went."

"Wha? Goin' down the Artemis-Newport route, don't you remember?" Wash took a step back, eyes widening, and he looked up at Mal.

"One of the freighters we spotted was heading that way," he said and relief became palpable in the crowed little passenger dorm. Just as they started to relax and sigh in relief, Winth shook his head.

"Hey, my hands are . . . I can feel my . . . what the hell?" His voice came back strong, and Mal stepped forward, ripping the blindfold off his face.

"Thanks," he muttered. "Took you too long to 'fess that up." Winth blinked, eyes widening as he realized what he'd just done.

"Oh, God," he breathed. "Niska . . . he's gonna . . . ."

"No, he ain't," Mal replied, crossing his arms. "For two good reasons. First, I'm gonna put that worthless old son of a bitch down myself." Mal's arms uncrossed, and he stepped forward, hauling the prisoner up to his feet.

"And second, because I'm going to do it to you _first_."

* * *

Time had stopped mattering. He didn't know how long he'd been there; all he remembered now was blood pooling on his skin amidst the stingin' sweat. Periods of ache were intermixed with vicious gasps of thrashing pain. Volsky was sifting between various tools. He'd used a barbed whip for a bit, then went back to electricity for what Jayne guessed was an hour or two.

Right now, Volsky was applying a fresh coat of toxin to his blade.

"You know, there are two types of people in this world," the torturer mused, smiling. He set down the brush and walked toward Jayne, peering over his body and looking for an appropriate spot to continue. There was a prick of flesh as the _hun dan _found a spot on the mercenary's left pectoral, just above where he'd cut the first time, hours ago.

"That right?" Jayne asked through gritted teeth, and he let out a restrained yowl of pain as Volsky cut.

"Indeed," the torturer continued, applying a foam bandage to the wound. "Those who _think_ they're intelligent, and those that really _are_." He set the foam dispenser down, and started applying more toxin to his knife.

"That's an odd way of lookin' at it," Jayne muttered, trying to keep his breathing steady as the burning agony seeped down under his skin.

"Yes, I suppose, but its true," Volsky explained. "You see, you and Mister Niska are the former." He turned back to Jayne, his knife ready again. "And certain people, such as myself, are the latter."

"Really?" Jayne replied, a little put off by the insult. So far they had been focusing entirely on physical pain, not any sort of pokin' at the mind, but what the goon was saying also set off alarm bells elsewhere in Jayne's mind. Volsky had just insulted his own boss.

Then, as if summoned by the off-hand comment, the door to the chamber flew open, and Niska strode in, rubbing his hands together and smiling like it was Christmas. Black-clad bodyguards strode in behind him.

"Volsky!" he called, and the goon almost had a heart attack at the sudden intrusion. "How is our other prisoner?"

"Ah, he is fine, sir," Volsky replied quickly. "Very healthy. I was just about to do another incision here, along the right abdominal . . . ."

"Continue, please," Niska said, sitting down in a chair. He waited until Jayne had finished snarling as the fire slid into his muscles and blood, and then stood back up.

"I do not enjoy being disappointed, Mister Cobb," Niska said, pacing in front of Jayne as Volsky readied another dose of cutting poison. Jayne smirked.

"Must make you mad when you look in the mirror then, huh?" Niska stopped, and laughed, clapping his hands.

"_Very_ good. _Very_, very good." Volsky slid up and slashed down one of Jayne's arms as Niska spoke. The crime lord waited until Jayne was done thrashing and yelling, and continued.

"I look into bounty on River Tam," he said, shaking his head. "There is no bounty. Reward has been called off for months now. This is very odd, because she has not been captured, except by myself. Perhaps, you would like to share information on this oddity, _yes_?" Jayne managed a harsh laugh.

"You want answers," he said, trying to hide his shock that the bounty had been called off, and the kernel of fear as to what that meant for the girl. "You jus' go an' take off her cuffs, let her go. She'll show you everything." Niska nodded.

"I have my suspicions," he mused. "But I am not that curious. I have been hurting her very much since I found out she was worth only her screams, and I have discovered that she is _very_ resistant. Pain is nothing new to her, I think."

Jayne didn't speak, trying not to even think about what he had done to River in the time they'd been separated. Instead, he focused on the old bastard's face, imagining how he could rearrange it with his own tools.

"Also, another oddity," Niska continued. Beside him, Volsky raised his knife, but the gangster held up his hand, keeping the torturer back.

"When I begin asking her questions, she has a very strange response. Name, rank, serial number, I believe she is saying. That is what soldiers say when they are captured, yes? Why is a child able to fight back against pain and talks like a soldier who has been captured?"

"Ain't got a clue," Jayne replied, to which Niska shook his head.

"You are a poor liar, Mister Cobb. If you don't tell me, I might simply rip it from her own lips, yes?" Jayne stood up straight in his restraints, and tried to surge forward, to which Niska laughed.

"Good, good," the old man said, clapping his hands, his smile nearly eating his face. "I have a theory that this girl matters more to you than your reputation would let on. So, perhaps if I make you watch while Volsky slices off her fingers, it may loosen your tongue." He snapped his fingers, and the guards swarmed around him, surrounding Jayne.

He expected them to start unstrapping him, and he tensed, prepared to launch himself out the moment he was free, but the men led with boots and fists, smashing the mercenary in the stomach and face. Relentless impacts thudded against his chest and head, and after less than a minute of the brutal beating, he was left dazed and half-unconscious. By the time he realized he was no longer strapped to the pain rack, his hands were already being bound behind his back with plastic zip-tie cuffs.

The goons hauled Jayne to his feet before Niska, and the old man gestured toward the door. Without another word, the guards manhandled Jayne out the portal and into the corridors beyond.

"Volsky," Niska called. "Come with us, and bring your blade, yes?"

* * *

Kaylee heard the yelling down below, and as she ran down the steps to the common area, she saw Mal dragging the tied up and bloody form of the mercenary prisoner. Wash and Book were yelling at him, but Zoe stood between the captain and the others. Simon followed, wiping his hands, his expression impossible to read as he simply watched.

"What's goin' on?" Kaylee asked, and Mal froze. He looked back up at her, his hardened expression wavering for half a heartbeat, before reasserting itself.

"Tying up loose ends," he replied, in that same painfully cold voice he used on Haven.

"You mean murdering an unarmed prisoner," Book replied. His tone, harsh and accusing, made Kaylee gasp.

"Won't be the first time, preacher," Mal replied, and then hauled the prisoner up the steps and out into the cargo bay. He got halfway out into the bay, the others spilling after him. Kaylee caught Simon's shoulder, and the doctor looked back at her pleading eyes, asking for an explanation, and fear mixed into her expression. Fear of Mal, of the voice he was using, of where and when he was at that moment.

Simon couldn't explain. His oath said to not allow anyone to come to harm, but the cold anger in his chest prevented him from feeling anything for a man who would have gladly sold them out to Niska for a few credits. A man whose companions _had_ sold his sister and another crewman to Niska for a few credits.

"Mal!" Inara yelled, and the Captain paused for a second. His features did not shift in that moment, and he then started forward again, dragging the struggling, terrified mercenary toward the front of the bay.

"Don't do this," Book urged, stepping around in front of Mal. The captain snapped his gaze up, a dangerous, lethal glint in his eyes, and he pushed forward, shoving Book out of the way with his shoulder as he pulled the prisoner along.

"Don't get in my way again, preacher," he rumbled.

"He can't -" Wash was saying, trying to reason with Zoe. "You can't let him-"

"His decision," Zoe replied, her voice tight, arms crossed. She neither helped nor hindered Mal; it wasn't her place. Book was walking alongside Mal, gesturing with open, reconciliatory hands as he tried to dissuade the Captain.

"I did not stand in the way when you were torturing this man because I knew it _needed_ to be done," he was explaining. "But this is not necessary! Killing this man in cold blood-"

"Gotta happen," Mal replied, not meeting Book's eyes as he reached the control panel. He slapped the release, and the inner airlock door opened.

"Executing a prisoner is not-" Book was saying.

"Preacher, we do not have a good track record when it comes to keepin' prisoners contained," Mal snarled, dragging Winth toward the opening airlock, over his desperate protests. "I recall correctly, the _last_ man we left in the passenger dorms knocked you unconscious and took a gun to a teenage girl's head. I had to put him down myself. _Twice_." He hefted his arms, dumping Winth in the airlock, and spun around, slapping the controls again as he reached them.

"Just because-"

"I am _not_ leaving a loose end on my boat," Mal continued as the airlock hissed closed. He met Book's eyes again. "What do you expect me to do when we board Niska's ship? Leave this man locked up, unsupervised, at our backs, to escape and maybe shoot on of us in the back? Or snatch _Serenity_ away and leave us hangin'? Push comes to shove, he's gonna do what he needs to make his boss happy so a man like Niska won't come after him. I can't leave anyone behind to watch him, either. Kaylee? What good can she do, honest, when it comes to protecting a prisoner? Inara? You? If I'm going to pull River and Jayne out of this, I am gonna need all hands on deck. I cannot leave a gun hand behind when I ain't got enough to be comfortable with as-is."

Book was silent at the cold, savage logic. At the far end of the bay, Wash shook his head, still revolted by the prospect, and Kaylee was silent, her hands over her mouth as she watched the confrontation. Simon slid an arm over her shoulder, pulling her beside him. Zoe closed her eyes, sighing. Only Inara was moving, running down the steps and grabbing Mal's shoulder.

"Don't _do_ this," she pleaded, to which he looked away, crossing his arms.

"This is reality," Mal muttered, reaching toward the panel. "Ain't a pretty place." Book slid in front of him, not blocking Mal's arm, but putting his presence in his path.

"Mal, you are not the same as him," he said. "Do not walk down this road."

"I'm already on the road, Shepherd," Mal replied. "Been down it a long while before you tried to steer me back. Out here, in the Black, there's only one law, and you know that. Knew it before steppin' out of the abbey, didn't you?" Book's grim expression showed Mal was close on the mark, and his hand reached forward, hovering over the controls.

"This man doesn't need to die," Book implored, one last time. There was a single, long heartbeat, Mal's thumb hovering over the controls, his face impassive and hard as armor plating.

"You may be right," he whispered.

The light flashed as Mal's thumb jabbed down. Outside, the outer airlock door opened, and there was a single, distant thump on the hull.

The air in the bay was still, heavy, silent.

Captain Malcolm Reynolds closed the airlock, turned, and started walking away from the bay doors. He did not meet anyone's eyes. As he started up the steps toward the bridge, he muttered quietly, but everyone heard his words as clearly as a bell on a frosty morning.

"Ain't my call to make."

His crew always came first. _Always_.

Mal paused at the top of the steps, and looked back down to his crew, staring back at him with mixed expressions. Cold acceptance from Zoe, horror and disbelief from Wash and Kaylee, anger and outrage on Inara's face. Book was still shocked, but that was slowly segueing into an exhausted, resigned understanding. Simon was a blank, having discarded pity once the weight of his sister's plight had hit him.

"Jayne and River are in hell right now," he said, meeting their eyes. "I'm gonna bring 'em home. Feel free to join me whenever you want to."

* * *

An echo, from the Black. Distances farther than what she was used to. Familiar faces, familiar voices, familiar pages, speaking the same thing at the same moment.

Mal . . . had just been Mal.

She shuddered. 

The_** pain**_ hit her again.

"Tam. River. Test subject. Zero zero zero, one three seven."

* * *

-

* * *

_**Author's Notes: **_Mal is not a nice person.

One thing that slightly bugged me about "The Train Job" was how no one really had a negative reaction to Mal shrugging and casually putting a man through the ship's engine; Book at the very least would have given him a nice frowny-face for it. Then I realized that he apparently didn't _tell_ anyone else about it; only Zoe was present. I decided to play around with the idea of what would happen if Mal decided to show his really cruel side openly before his crew, and what he would be thinking even while doing so. Also, it gave me a good way to get rid of a loose end. :P

So, now, things are coming to a head. The last few chapters have been a bit slow, but things will pick up in the next few chapters as we enter the last third of the plot for "Unfinished Business." Jayne and River still have a little bit of Niska's hospitality to endure, the Alliance is closing in, and _Serenity's_ crew is going to play at being Big Damn Heros once again...

Also, there may be some odd text and formatting errors with this chapter. Looks like a bug in document uploading/saving. I'll see about fixing up a clean version later on.

Until next chapter . . . .


	8. Chapter Seven: Pages

_**Author's Note:**_ Once again -_** M**_ rating for this chapter, due to both violence and mature themes.

* * *

_**Chapter Seven: Pages**_

Wash's fingers drummed on the pilot's console nervously, his eyes glued to the gauges. The rest of the ship was quiet, the constant, distant thrum of the engines now silent after their last hard burn.

His loose, tropical clothes had been discarded, in favor of a sleeveless shirt and one of the rugged tactical vests Jayne had a habit of collecting. A couple of pistols were already holstered, along with that .38 revolver he'd taken a liking to since the last time they'd rumbled Niska's party. The heavy ten gauge charged-shell shotgun he'd been using then sat beside the pilot's seat, ready and loaded, courtesy of his wife.

"ETA?"

The pilot nearly jumped at Mal's voice, and he looked up. The Captain was standing in the bridge hatch, looking out the window into the featureless Black beyond.

"An hour," Wash said after a second, regaining his composure. Mal's face was still hardened, but that icy fire that had been burning in the cargo bay was dying out, even if the determination was still set in his features. He'd been avoiding anyone else on the ship for the last hour or so, since the incident in the cargo bay. Now he looked almost _exhausted_.

"We on course?" Mal asked, and Wash nodded.

"I still don't have a registry on the freighter, but I have its course and I picked it up on long range before we went dark," he explained. "Got a good head start, but _Serenity's_ engines put it to shame. That last burn will bring us in close in about fifty-five minutes."

"Keep an eye on it with passives," Mal ordered. "I'll have Zoë prep your kit." Wash nodded, staring down at the gauges for a second, and then is head poked back up.

"Mal," he said. The Captain paused as he started to leave, and looked back.

"I . . . ." the pilot trailed off. What Mal had done in the cargo bay wasn't unprecedented, but it still shook him. It _always_ shook him when he saw that side of his Captain: the crazy, vicious and unyielding aspect that war and loss had hammered into him.

"What is it?" Mal asked, and Wash was silent for a second, before spinning around in the chair and looking Mal dead in the eye.

"Mal, I've been with you for a long time," he said. "This job almost got me killed more times than I can remember. But sometimes, its worth it. What we do, what we get out of it, can be worth going too far sometimes."

"You've told me this before," Mal said, and Wash nodded.

"I know. Its just . . . Mal, make this worthwhile," he whispered. "That's all I want. Make all the _go se_ we do worth it." The Captain was quiet for a moment, and he slapped the side of the portal he stood in, his palm ringing on the metal.

"You get us to Niska's boat," he said, his voice solid and firm. "And I'll damn well make all the ugly we have to do worth it."

* * *

He wasn't sure how long they'd been dragging him through the ship, but his knees banged painfully against the lower edge of a door hatch what felt like days after they'd pulled Jayne off the rack. The guards pulled him through the door, into an antechamber, and then into another cell, smaller than the torture room they'd been in for the last few hours.

His vision was still blurry from the beating he'd gotten, but Jayne was able to look up at what was in the middle of the room.

_River._

The sight he saw sent a boiling rage through him, the same sort of rage he'd felt when he'd seen Kaylee get shot by Dobson near a year past. _Red_ tinged the edges of his vision, tempered only by the beating he'd gotten.

She was hanging from the ceiling, arms manacled above her head, weight balanced on her toes. She was limp, head hanging low, shivering in the cold of the cell, electrical wires dangling from spots on her chest and stomach. The cuts were still visible, angry red marks on her stomach and dark bruised on her chest, belly, and arms. He couldn't see her face, just a split lip amidst the tangles of dark, matted hair. There was a blindfold around her eyes.

"Oh, you _gorram pi gu _licking sacks of-" Volsky cut off the profanity with a solid backhand, and the guards dragged Jayne to one side of the room. They shoved him down to his knees and turned him to watch River. The knife-wielding torturer walked up behind Jayne and put a hand on the mercenary's shoulder, chuckling.

"Now," Niska said, walking into the middle of the room. "We are assembled again. Since we are together, we must address balancing issues, yes? Mister Cobb, you have taken up much of the slack for the girl while we were checking her background. River, she has paid some of that debt back, but now we must finish balancing the accounts." He nodded, and Jayne gritted his teeth.

Electricity fizzled, and River shook violently in her restraints, her head coming up. Her shuddering groans bit into Jayne's ears. After a few seconds of the shocks, they cut off the electricity again, and she slumped again, panting.

Guilt washed over him. He'd tried to help her, but now . . . .

"Tam. River. Test subject." Her voice was a flat monotone. "Zero zero zero, one three seven."

Time passed. He tried to block it out, but River's groans and constant, flat, and unchanging monotone response bit at him everytime Jayne heard it. Volsky would occassionally punch or kick Jayne if he tried to look away.

"She is still uncooperative, I see," Niska said after a while, shaking his head. "That is unfortunate."

"You're right." Niska stopped, and all eyes turned toward River, whose head had risen. Though her eyes were shrouded behind the blindfold, her head was locked on Niska's face, as if she saw him perfectly fine. Knowing what Jayne knew, she _did_.

"This is very unfortunate." Her words were matter-of-fact, almost conversational, as if she wasn't chained to the ceiling like a slab of meat. Niska blinked, confused, and he stepped toward her, turning his head to the side in curiosity.

"What do you mean?" he asked, and River's lips pressed together for a few seconds.

"You raised the flag," she said. The expression on her face was absolutely blank, but the _tone_ . . . Jayne knew it. It was that distant voice she used when she was pokin' her mind into others'. "They're coming."

"Who is coming?" Niska asked, delighted that the girl was finally saying something interesting.

"They come out of the Black. They come when you call." She turned her head, her blindfolded eyes looking directly at Jayne now.

Oh, _shit_. He remembered the last time she'd said that.

"Two by two," she spoke, and the weight of those words sinking deep into Jayne Cobb. _Ariel_. The _screaming_.

_"Hands of Blue . . . ."_

* * *

The scent of gun oil filled the dining room as Zoë laid out a long line of weapons across the wooden table, loading and preparing them. Across the table from her, Simon was buckling on one of Wash's multi-purpose pilot vests, and loading magazines into the pouches. he'd changed out of his casual clothes, into a more rugged set of cargo pants, boots, and T-shirt, like what Jayne sometimes wore.

He'd bought them at River's insistence, a month ago, just after Miranda.

"We don't want you going in heavy," Zoë was saying. "You'll be carrying medkit, ammunition, a couple of weapons."

"You want me to play mule," Simon replied, not looking up as he took one of the pistols - the laser-sighted autoloader he'd used the time they'd stormed Niska's skyplex.

"Me, Wash, and Mal are going to carry the heavy weapons," she replied, and he heard a deep clicking sound. He glanced up, to see the slender woman hefting Vera, the monstrous assault rifle seeming to dwarf her. "Besides, if River or Jayne are in a bad way when we find them . . . ."

"I understand," Simon said, looking back down at the table. He holstered the pistol and picked up a submachinegun. There were footsteps outside, and they looked up, to see Kaylee enter the room, holding a portable datapad.

"I got maps," she explained. "Took the schematics of the ship class off the Cortex."

"If Niska's got his hands on that thing, its probably not going to be standard," Zoë remarked, and Kaylee nodded, glum.

"If I can get on board, I can hack the ship's mainframe, punch in and get schematics from its network," she added. Simon frowned.

"I don't know if that's a good idea," he remarked. "I mean, I'm not a soldier or anything, but we're going to need to protect the ship." He bit back a comment on not wanting Kaylee to run headlong into combat, either. The memory of her with Reaver paralyzer darts buried in her throat was still fresh in his mind.

"Right," Zoë replied. "But I don't like the idea of going in blind. Lay it out, Kaylee, let's see what we can use." The mechanic nodded, and put the pad in the middle of the dining table. They leaned over the small screen.

"What are we lookin' at?" came a call from the crew corridor, and Kaylee stiffened a little. She looked up as Mal walked into the dining room. Their eyes met, and to her surprise, he turned away quickly, as if he couldn't handle meeting her gaze.

"Schematics Kaylee pulled on that class of ship," Zoë explained. Mal peered over the datapad.

"Ain't gonna be much use," he muttered. "But somethin's better than nothin'. Can we make a plan outta this?"

"Possible," Zoë replied, her tone emphasizing the negative aspect of that idea. He frowned.

"I don't want to screw this up," he said after a second. "Zoë, you come up with the plan."

"Sir?"

"Got a reputation, I suppose," Mal said, scratching his chin. "Plans never work the way we want 'em to." He paused. "You're takin' Vera?"

"We'll need the firepower," Zoe replied.

"Jayne ain't gonna be too happy, you handling his weapon," Mal added, to which his second shrugged.

"He can issue a formal complaint when we're done hauling his ass back here, sir."

"Agreed," Mal replied. He stepped around her, past Kaylee, and headed down the rear corridor.

"Where are you going?" Simon asked.

"Got words need that need speakin'," he called back over his shoulder.

* * *

"This gets us nowhere," Niska said after a few minutes. River had been silent after dropping the warning, a warning only Jayne understood. He suspected what might happen if he'd gotten Niska to call in the bounty, but he hadn't really thought it through beyond keeping her from getting hurt more.

The _gorram_ clock was ticking, he knew. But at the same time, there was an opportunity. If the bounty had been canceled, that meant that the Alliance wanted this under the radar, just like they had when the bastard Operative had been sent their way. They needed a plan to get out of here, but how could they talk with the guards all over them?

"Nowhere," River repeated, the first words she'd spoken since. She looked at Niska, their gazes locked into each others' in spite of the blindfold. "Nowhere and everywhere. Secrets buried in pages."

"She speaks nonsense," Volsky muttered, standing behind Jayne. His fingers tapped the knife on his belt.

"Probably because you broke her brain," Jayne sneered. He kept his eyes on River, and after a few seconds, he had an idea.

"Perhaps," Niska was saying, rubbing his chin as he considered the curious little girl. Jayne stared directly at River, and then turned his gaze down to her waist, and lower.

Her head snapped around toward Jayne, those dark little eyebrows brows rising in surprise and indignation at his exceptionally inappropriate thoughts, and he hid his smirk. Good, got her attention.

An eyebrow rose, just a tiny arch, as she caught that thought. He made sure the next thing he thought was just as loud and clear.

_You got a plan to get us out of here?_

There was a moment of silence.

"Toxins," River said, looking back toward Niska. "It hurts, but it doesn't kill. Slicing and cutting." Jayne frowned, not getting what she was saying, and Niska blinked. River kept her head locked on the crime boss, as if she was speaking directly to him.

"He understands," she said. "He doesn't comprehend."

Girl was speaking gibberish now. They'd hurt her bad, worse than the Academy it seemed like, and that thought made Jayne's blood begin to boil again.

River turned her gaze back toward Jayne, but it was higher, glaring at the man standing over the mercenary.

"What are you staring at?" Volsky asked.

"Your pages," River replied. "Bright and clear ink. Tells stories. Ibrahim Volsky. Married, no children." Jayne felt the man tensing up behind him, and Niska's beady eyes widened behind his glasses for an instant.

"What did you-" the torturer began.

"Knows what you do for a living," River continued. "She doesn't like it, but she likes the money. Away for too long, so she likes to play with others under the sheets. But you don't care." Jayne's jaw almost dropped to the floor as he finally got it. She was using her mind-pokin' skills on Volsky, but he didn't understand why _him_.

Unless, of course, she wanted to piss him off, which was becoming a clear notion.

"How did you find out about that?" the torturer snarled, taking a step around Jayne.

"Ambitions," River said, keeping her shrouded eyes on the rapidly angering lieutenant. "Two kinds of people. Intelligent and thinks they're intelligent. Thinks you're one, but doesn't understand relative positioning on scales."

"What?" several voices asked at once from various places in the room.

"You're a dummy," River said. Volsky began to come forward, but Niska raised a hand, halting his advance.

"Continue," the crime lord said, his words directed at River and his face showing intense interest in the bizarre conversation.

"Thinks he's intelligent," she said after a few seconds, waiting until Volsky stepped back beside Jayne. "Paid the bodyguards, bypassed air vents." She looked at Niska. "Nerve gas. In the vents. Waiting until everyone is asleep, and then a great deal of silence. Without Niska, only Volsky."

"Lies," Volsky said, shaking his head. "The girl speaks nonsense and insanity!"

"Yes, I think so too," Niska replied, nodding. "Peskov." He turned, gesturing to one of his bodyguards.

"Shoot Volsky in the head, please."

The torturer had only an instant to reach to his belt, grabbing at his sidearm, when the bodyguard snapped up a pistol. The small room was filled the crack of the gunshot, and Volsky topped backwards, crashing down behind Jayne, blood splattering the walls behind them.

River looked at Jayne, her face shifting - _pleading_.

He didn't nod, but he understood. Niska was grinning like a kid in a candy store, and he turned toward his bodyguards, saying something. Jayne wasted no time, and had finished what needed doing before they'd turned back. Niska looked at the captured mercenary and then quickly gestured to one of his men. The guard moved around behind Jayne, dragging Volsky's corpse away and securing his pistol. A moment later, the body was carried out of the room, leaving Jayne with only Niska, River, and two more guards. The hatch shut again.

"I have a feeling," Niska said to the much emptier room. "I think, perhaps Volsky is ambitious, yes? So I make sure to give all my guards raises, so when Volsky bribes them, it is not good enough. They bring me canister of nerve gas today. Proof yes, that Volsky is plotting to betray me?" He clapped his hands.

"Only one regret, I suppose. I could not torture him like I will with you two, and ship his body back to his friends as proof of what happens to those who cross Niska. Too dangerous, with his betrayal revealed." Niska gestured, bringing his bodyguards in closer. They stepped across the room, and he spoke to them quickly.

River looked at Jayne, and he nodded. Very soon, he thought. They'd be out of here.

Ironical, that the man who'd been torturing them the last few hours would help set them free.

* * *

He was loading a rifle as Mal emerged into the cargo bay. The Captain peered down, to see him standing at the weight bench, magazines and a couple of pistols set out on the seat, as he looked over the weapon in his hands.

"Preacher," Mal said, clambering down the steps. Book looked up at him.

"Captain," he replied. His voice was direct and terse.

The Shepherd's Bible sat beside his weapons, closed but visible.

Mal stopped at the bottom of the stairs, leaning on the railing, considering what to say as Book readied his gear. He wore a gunbelt around his waist, taken from the weapons locker at the back of the bay, and had ammunition webbing around his shoulders and mid-section. The belts and stocked ammunition seemed to fit over the preacher's clothes like a second skin.

Not for the first time, Mal wondered what he'd been before becoming a holy man.

"Shepherd," Mal said after a few seconds. "This is-"

"You don't need to say anything," Book replied, putting down his loaded weapon. He picked up one of the pistols, loaded and chambered it, and slid it into a holster. "I understand. I do not approve, but I _understand_ far too well." Mal nodded, and shifted the subject.

"Why'd you come back on board?" He asked, and Book slowed. His fingers hovered over another pistol, and then closed into a fist. He exhaled, straightening, and closed his eyes.

"You left for good reason," Mal continued. "I hold no grudge about that hit, and that's why you left. You knew what we did, worried it was affectin' you yourself. I don't blame a holy man for not lurkin' in a den of thieves." He paused. "So, why'd you come back on board after Haven? After Doc found you, patched you up with a miracle of his own, you stayed, 'spite you sayin' you didn't want to be on here anymore."

Book was silent for a long while, and his hand drifted down to his Bible. He looked up.

"Because no matter your sins, Mal," he said, "you _believe_."

"In what?" Mal asked, surprised.

"Ideals. Honor. Family. There is a good man in you," Book replied. "Somewhere."

"I'll take that as a compliment," the Captain said, and with a nod of understanding, he headed back up the steps.

Book watched him leave, and didn't tell Mal the other reason.

_Serenity_ stayed with you, no matter where you went. It stayed in Mal . . . and others, as well. It never left you, and you never left it. That was the kind of place it was.

* * *

They'd spent most of the time since Mal had left in silence. Kaylee was slipping on a vest like Simon's, and was fiddling with a couple of weapons, pistols for the most part. they were vaguely familiar in her hands; she'd handled a few before, made a decent accounting of herself when fighting the Reavers, though there was no way she was going to be as good as Zoe or Jayne or the Captain.

"I don't get it," Kaylee said, fumbling with the magazine for her weapon. She frowned, steadied herself, and carefully slid the magazine into the ammunition port.

"Don't get what?" Simon asked, taking another pair and sliding them into her vest pockets.

"The Cap'n," she said, frowning and looking down at the plans. "How he can do what he does sometimes."

"War," Zoe answered, looking up from the schematics. Kaylee met her eyes, and then looked back down at the weapons spread out before her.

"Ain't known war could make a man go crazy like that," she whispered.

"War brings out the worst in people, sometimes," Zoe replied, her voice distant. "Brings out the demons."

"But its over," the mechanic said, shaking her head. "I mean, we did what we did at Miranda 'cause we needed to, but that was 'cause it had to be done, not 'cause we was fightin' a war."

"We're fighting one now," Simon said.

"I . . . I don't know," Kaylee muttered, and he reached forward, clapping his hands over her shoulders. She looked back up at him, and his hands moved closer, brushing through her hair and cradling her chin.

"Scares me, sometimes," she breathed. "Mal an' Zoe. Jayne, coupla' times. River, too. I hate it when its like this, you know?"

"That's . . ." Simon paused, looking away. "Kaylee, why do you think I love you?"

Silence filled the dining room for several long moments. Even Zoe had stopped preparing their weapons and gear, to watch the pair. After several long heartbeats, her voice drifted across the room.

"Last thing Mal wants is to see you fighting his wars, Kaylee," she said, and they looked to her. "Last piece of goodness left in the 'verse, he said once."

"Cap'n said that?" Kaylee asked, her jaw drooping slightly, and Zoe nodded.

"Honest," the grizzled old warrior woman replied, sliding a freshly loaded magazine into one of the pistols.

* * *

The cloying scent of incense greeted his nose as he crossed the catwalk and neared her shuttle. He paused outside, for once not certain about barging in, but after a few moments, Mal stepped forward, through the portal.

She had rebuilt the interior, restored it with all the sheets and fineries of her profession. Candles burned across from the bed, dim, warm light soaking the chamber as the spicy, sharp touch of the burning material wafted about the chamber. On her bed, sinking slightly into the rich satin sheets, was her torque bow, along with a small, straight-bladed sword, a half-meter in length. He'd always been confused by her esoteric choice of weapons.

"Inara," he said, his voice seeming to vanish into the scented air. He'd never remembered her shuttle being this heavy with the drifting, faint smoke, burning into his nostrils.

She was kneeling before the small shrine she kept, hidden behind the curtains, sticks of sweet-smelling incense burning. He paused, seeing that she was sparsely dressed, with only a silken something-or-other around her waist, her back to him, exposing her lean, toned upper body. Mal had a hard time choosing between turning away and keeping his eyes locked on her, but as she turned her head to look back at his intrusion, Mal's embarrassment got the better of him.

"Mal," she replied, her voice dark and quiet. There was a distance to her tone, businesslike, as it often was during strained moments like this and how a part of him wished it never would be again.

"Wash has us en route," he said. "He estimates we'll intercept in forty-five minutes."

"Understood," she replied, turning back toward the shrine and closing her eyes.

"Zoë's coming up with a plan right now," he explained. "Once you get finished, we'll all meet out in the cargo bay. Kit up, get our pieces of the play." She nodded, but didn't reply verbally.

Mal started back toward the door, and then stopped, looking back at her. He let his gaze hover for a second.

"Yes?" she asked as he lingered.

"What are you doing?"

"Cleansing myself," she replied.

"Don't see any water," Mal added. He heard her sigh faintly.

"Cleansing the spirit," she clarified. "You'd understand, if you had a _soul_."

"Are you mentionin' me tossing a man out of my airlock?" Mal asked, rising to the bait.

"After tearing him to pieces over several hours, _yes_," she bit out, not looking back at him.

"I did what I _had_ to do," Mal hissed. "For Jayne, for _River._"

"Including throwing him out the airlock?" she said, turning to face him. Mal immediately spun away, before he could catch an eyeful he shouldn't be wanting to see but cursing himself for missing out on.

"I _couldn't_ keep him here," Mal said, clenching his fists and staring very firmly at a wall hanging. "What was I supposed to do? Lock him up? Risk him getting out and hurting someone? If he hurt Kaylee, or_ you_, I don't think I -"

Mal stopped short.

Too close. Too close to admitting something he never wanted to admit.

The scent filled the room, pouring down his nostrils, and a heavy, tense weight filled the tiny shuttle. He heard her rise.

"What?" she breathed.

There was movement beside him, and Mal kept his eyes rooted to the wall, even as he felt her draw closer.

"You . . . losing you would . . . ." No. He wasn't going to tell her. Things between them were complicated enough as-is.

"Look at me," she said, her breath warm on his cheek. Mal hesitated, his eyes flicking around, and then touching her own jet-black gaze. She was close, very close, her body heat seeping through his shirt. He'd hoped she'd put something on, but he could tell she was still naked from the waist up, but so close he couldn't see anything except her eyes.

He'd almost admitted it. To her, to himself, gotten it into the open, eliminating a set of complications while creating a whole new one.

"What couldn't you do?" she asked. Mal was silent, trying to think, but she was confusing and fouling up everything and that damn incense and the heat and the softness was-

_"Mal!"_

Wash's intrusion was a horrific curse from the lowest reaches of hell and a shining miracle from Godly Buddha al-Allah all at once.

"Wash?" Mal asked, slapping the intercom at the door.

_"Got a pickup on passive. Light bounce."_

"What is it, an escort?" Mal asked, his stomach sinking. The last thing they needed was a hostile, armed escort protecting Niska's freighter.

_"No, its a ship, on an intercept course," _Wash replied over the comm. There was a moment's wait. _"Mal, its . . . _tzao gao . . . ."

"What is it?" Mal asked.

_"Alliance assault gunboat," _Wash breathed. _"On an intercept for Niska's ship."_

* * *

Niska was still talking with his goons. Jayne's fingers clenched, his wrists rubbing together. Another minute, and he could-

River's sudden gasp caught his attention, and Jayne looked up.

Her eyebrows rose and jaw opened, and she turned her head, looking toward the guards. Fear etched itself across her features, genuine dread and horror, something he hadn't seen since they'd woken up in the infirmary. As the guards moved toward her, she seemed to shy away, and then looked back toward Jayne, her expression nearly sending him into a panic himself. Sheer terror was apparent in her face, not the formless kind that rendered her catatonic and helpless, but solid, concrete, panic-inducing.

"My medics, they are thorough people," Niska said, pulling up a chair and sitting down. One guard walked past River, standing beside Jayne, while the other circled around her, popping his knuckles as he looked her over. His eyes roamed over her body.

Jayne saw that look, and . . . oh, God, he _understood_. The rage suddenly doubled over, and his fingers clenched even tighter than they had been before. Red flashed across his vision, barely restrained by a need to keep rational thought for a just a few more moments. There were a lot of things Jayne Cobb did, a lot of bad and vicious sorts of behavior he had no problems committing, but there were crimes even _he_ found horrible beyond reckoning.

"They gave River a _very_ good checkup," Niska explained. "Interesting find, they said to me. They report, it seems, that she has never known the proper touch of a man." His sadistic smile was expanding viciously across his face.

"This is tragedy, for a girl who may die very soon," he continued, nodding toward Jayne. "Must be remedied, I say. She must understand one little bit of passion before the end, yes?"

"Don't you _dare_," Jayne snarled, as River continued shying away from the advancing guard, the hunger and predatory lean apparent in his steps.

"You should watch, Mister Cobb," Niska said, and he poured a glass of wine. "We shall be very generous to her, yes?" He nodded toward the guard, who stopped, and smiled, reaching for River.

"Don't. You. _Touch_. _**Her**_." The guard paused, looking back toward Jayne, and laughed, before his hands rose toward River again, angling toward her waist.

Just as they reached her, he let the hate and fury boil over, and Jayne Cobb _saw red_.

* * *

"From the size of it, I estimate its got at least a hundred troops on board," Zoë reported. They were gathered around in the cargo bay, going over a set of schematics Kaylee had printed out. The bulk freighter Niska was using was laid out on the floor, Zoë pointing at various items of interest with her long rifle.

"What about the Alliance gunboat?" Simon asked. He was fully outfitted with a pair of pistols, a submachinegun, and ammunition for everyone. Two medkits were stowed, one on his belt and the other inside his vest.

"Ship that size and design," Book mused. "Single platoon, forty men. Designed for rapid deployment of troops from orbit to ground. The profile from Wash's light bounce shows its got an upgraded engine, able to move interplanetary."

"Wash says its moving stealth-like," Mal added. "Safe bet they ain't going for peaceable relations."

"You think Niska figured out who River is?" Zoë asked, and Mal nodded.

"Probably tried to sell her, or get information on her. Brought the feds down on him, and he doesn't even know it.

"We'll have to move fast and hard," Mal continued. "Got no idea where they're keepin' River and Jayne-"

"Actually," Inara stepped in, "Logically, they would keep them near the ship's infirmary."

"That would be _there_," Kaylee said, marking a spot amidships.

"Lotta sufficient places to store prisoners in that area," Zoë added.

"Can't be sure these schematics even apply," Mal added. "But they don't usually adjust ship hardpoints, do they, Kaylee?" She shook her head.

"Got cargo bay docking points here and here," she said, pointing to a pair of bulbous modules on the side of the ship.

"No good," Zoë replied. "Cargo bay is wide open, easy to shoot, lots of cross fire. We already showed them what it would be like trying to get inside ours. Crew access here."

"Agreed," Mal replied. "See this long corridor? Fire a grenade down that, storm it. Defense team can hold out there for a good long while."

"Who's on which team?" Inara asked.

"Assault team is going to be me, Zoë, Wash, and Simon," Mal explained. "Maximum firepower. We're going to keep moving. Doc, you stick with me. Zoë, you and Wash stay together, buddy up." She nodded.

"We don't want to get bogged down," she added. "We'll avoid conflict if possible."

"How is that possible?" Simon asked. "The last time we stormed Niska's skyplex, we were up against an army."

"We're letting the Alliance dock first," Mal replied. Simon's eyes widened.

"You can't-"

"Have to," Mal said quickly. "Otherwise every man on that ship is going to come after us. They'll pull the majority of Niska's people off of us, we slide in, grab our wayward babes and hightail it out of there."

"Second team is going to be on defense," Zoë continued. "Shepherd, Inara, Kaylee. Hold the access corridor here. If possible, jack into their mainframe, grab schematics. Hold onto the ship at all costs. Need be, fall back inside and close the hatches. We can call and open them when we get back. Understood?"

Nods, words of affirmation.

"Good," Mal said, looking around at his assembled crew. "Let's bring 'em home."

* * *

The small troop bay was filled with the sounds of soldiers finishing their final preparations for combat. Helmets were secured, weapons loaded, extra magazines and sidearms fixed to armor suits and webbing. Sonic stunners were mounted and charged, and pressure seals were checked and confirmed.

"Five minutes to contact," called Captain Durant over the intercom. "Proximity alert triggered. They know we're incoming."

"Acknowledged," Mr. Domali said, checking his pistol. He looked up to his partner, who nodded. They both had already prepared, charged, and checked their most insidious of weapons, and had gone over the subject's files and behavioral codes and triggers.

"Gentlemen," Armant called, and the soldiers in the bay looked up. He stepped into the middle of the group.

"You've already been briefed on the subject," he explained. 'Remember, nonlethal force _only_ against her. Do not engage River Tam in close combat. If you identify her, do not engage unless in self defense; report to us. We will neutralize her, but if the necessity arises, switch to stunners."

"These rules do not apply to Niska's personnel," added Domali. "Nor do they apply to any of _Serenity's_ crew that they may have captured. Anyone other than River Tam we encounter is to be terminated. _No_ exceptions."

The men nodded. They'd been selected and chosen carefully from the most loyal of the Alliance's troops; they would gladly die to complete this objective. They assembled at the end of the troop bay, weapons at the ready. Domali and Armant shared another glance and nod, sidearms gripped tightly in blue-gloved hands, and prepared to purge anyone who stood in their way.

* * *

The guard's hands touched her skin, and began pulling down her pants.

Then, River Tam _screamed._

This wasn't a normal scream. It was loud, _piercing_, the kind that made a man cover his ears as the pitch ripped at his eardrums.

Every man in the room recoiled from that scream, except Jayne. None of them could hear anything amidst that throat-tearing wail. It drowned out the engines, it drowned out the proximity alarms outside as the vessels closed, and it drowned out the sound of their own breathing.

It drowned out the strangled, agonized gasps of the guard who was standing behind Jayne, his blood gushing from a throat that found itself slit wide and deep.

The guard who had been preparing to rape River hauled back and slapped the girl, cutting off her shockingly loud wail. She swayed back, her eyes rising up, locking into his, and he froze. The terrified look she'd had before was replaced by an icy, wrathful stare that burned through the blindfold, and could reduce hardened murderers to quivering puddles of urine.

She was beaten, brutalized, exhausted, and her body was slack from her struggles, but a tiny spark of strength remained, in spite of all they'd put her through.

Her muscles flexed, and River hauled herself up by the chains binding her wrists. She ignored the pain - and then chose to go further, _feeding_ on it. Her feet rose from the floor, coiled beneath her, and snapped out in a single excruciating flash of muscle, a savage last gasp of movement held in reserve by the tortured girl for this exact moment. The guard was blasted backward off his feet, tumbled across the room, and slammed into a wall of solid meat.

Jayne Cobb caught the man, spun him around, and slashed open his throat as well, using the knife he'd pulled from the belt of Volsky's corpse - the same knife that had been cutting pieces of his skin out all day long, now gripped tightly in his huge ham-hands. It had cut the plastic zip-ties around his wrists, then the throat of the first guard as he'd been reacting to River's scream.

Now it tore open the man who'd been about to ruin the girl's last shreds of innocence. It tore in many times over, until the blood stopped flowing and simply seeped out.

Jayne stepped over the corpse after he'd felt he'd cut him enough, his eyes boring into those of Adelei Niska, who had fallen out of his chair. Moving faster than a man his size should have, Jayne jumped in front of the door, cutting the old man off. With a tight, hungry grin, the mercenary thumbed the flat of the knife and strode toward Niska, the crime lord backing away in sudden, helpless terror.

"Wonder'n if Mal wants one of your ears for himself?" he whispered, looming over the huddling man. "Fair trade."

This right here? This was some _good_ _gorram_ business.

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**Well, its about time.

Niska and his men are pretty evil bastards, but they're going to get what's coming to them. Fifteen different brands of ass-kicking are about to take place over the next couple of chapters, and not all of it is going to be by _Serenity's_ crew, either.

Keep in mind that, despite the reconciliatory tone of this chapter, not everything is going to be forgiven off the bat. There's definitely going to be repercussions in later stories in this series, especially regarding Mal and Inara. Incidentally, Mal and Inara are the two hardest characters for me to write - their scenes together are very brilliantly written in the series, and are just hard for me to match up to.

This chapter was originally slated to go up Sunday evening, in tim for Monday, but since its Easter Sunday, I have a ludicirous amount of stuff to do, so I decided that it would be better just to go up a day or so early.

Until next chapter . . . .

* * *


	9. Chapter Eight: War

**_Author's Note: _**With this chaper, we go back to good old-fashion _T-rated_ violence. Nothing worse than gunfights, throat-slitting, massive internal hemorraging, and Jayne collecting tertiary body parts with a knife.

* * *

_**Chapter Eight: War**_

It is difficult to hide one's presence in the Black. Thermal emissions are particularly difficult to mask, and unless one's ship is completely powered down, it will emit a significant heat signature from all manner of sources: engines and sensors primarily among them. After all, heat doesn't simply vanish; it has to go somewhere. Even top of the line stealth systems can only mask _some_ emitted heat, hiding the presence of a vessel for a short while.

Thus it was that when the Alliance gunship, its heavily modified engines upgraded for stealth, got close enough to the enormous bulk of Niska's freighter, its heat signature's detection became an inevitability rather than a possibility. Still, by the time the proximity alarms on the vessel began ringing, the gunship was in close, snuggling up along the hull and attaching to one of the cargo modules. Airlock tubes were extended as magnetic claws bonded the gunship to the freighter' hull, and within seconds the onboard computers had forced an override.

Niska was busy playing with - and being _played with by _- his new property, so the operations and defense of his ship fell to his many well-trained and capable subordinates. The pilot's computers detected the unauthorized docking minutes after the unexpected thermal intrusion, and response teams were scrambled immediately. More than twenty crewmembers were rushing to the cargo bay, weapons in hand, when the doors were forced open.

Gunfire blazed out of the entrance, followed by several grenades, as Niska's troops took up positions throughout the bay. Two minutes of furious and largely inconsequential exchanges of bullets passed; the opened cargo bay door wasn't wide enough for the intruders to storm the bay, and it was too narrow for Niska's troops to get a good angle to shoot at their attackers.

Then, something _odd_ happened.

As the two sides were firing, Niska's men began to feel a strange ringing sound in their ears. They dismissed it in the adrenaline fueled heat of battle, and continued pouring on fire. Then, as the minutes passed, rounds whipping across the bay, grenades exploding, ricochets and shrapnel careening through the air, one of the men felt warm dampness on his face, followed by a nagging pain under his skin. He wiped a hand across his nose, and it came away bloody. He looked down in confusion, and then his vision became blurry.

The nagging pain grew more intense, crawling under his skin, knifing through his bones, and suddenly there was nothing but the _agony_. His vision was washed away under a torrent of red, his breathing suddenly an exercise in raw pain, as if inhaling shards of glass. Blood ruptured from his mouth, his ears, his nose, his eyes-

He screamed, and seconds later, every man in the bay joined him, writhing, thrashing, not understanding what was happening as their bones broke, their organs ruptured, weapons firing wildly into the air.

Several seconds later, the bay was silent, every man who had gone to meet the invaders lying in a pool of their own ruptured and spreading blood. Boots stomped across the deck as the Alliance marines finally entered the bay, sweeping the area for survivors, even though they knew there wouldn't be any.

Behind them came Mr. Domali and Mr. Armant, the blue-gloved men holding pistols in one hand and small, innocuous cylindrical devices in the other.

* * *

"Wash, what's our status?" Mal called as the group readied at the rear airlock, weapons in hand.

"Skipping around what looks like a point-defense cannon, hold on," Wash replied from the cockpit. "Going hot." The ship shook a tiny bit as Wash adjusted their course.

Mal clenched the automatic rifle he'd carried on Miranda. On his belt was his old, trusty sidearm and a couple of secondary pistols, and inside his coat was a mess of grenades of all flavors. Zoe was beside him, Vera's enormous size almost dwarfing her, and the half-dozen firearms she carried seemed to weight her down; between the long rifle on her back, her favored lever-action, and three pistols, she was the most heavily armed of the bunch.

Mal looked across the bay, to where the Shepard stood, solid and unmoving, his rifle held easily in his hands, stun and concussion grenades attached to his belt. Behind him were Kaylee and Simon, both lightly armed with submachineguns and pistols, the Doc burdened with his medical gear and extra ammunition. Beside them stood Inara, her torque bow loaded.

"Get ready," Wash muttered over the comm.

Mal met her eyes, and she gave him a firm nod. Kaylee reached back and grasped Simon's shoulder. Book whispered something, a prayer, and Mal found it welcome somehow. Zoe didn't blink.

"Docking now!" Outside, there was a dull clang. Kaylee's override code kicked in a few seconds later, and they rushed into the airlock. Mal grabbed and threw open the personnel door in the outer airlock, and as he yanked it back, Zoe swept Vera into the gap.

"Clear," she called, and she started into the corridor beyond. Mal followed, Simon a step behind. Wash would be joining the assault team in a minute, after running down the stairs to rejoin them.

Their boots sounded on the metal of the hostile ship as they burst in, driving into Niska's base for their missing comrades.

* * *

That look on Niska's face. _Oh yeah_. He wasn't smiling anymore.

Jayne Cobb _was_ smiling, right through the _red_. It hurt his face and his split lip to do that, but the pain was good, a little spice after all he'd just gone through. His fingers tightened around the blade that had been tearing bits and pieces out of him all day long.

Adelei Niska tried to flee, but Jayne was _there_, two hundred plus pounds of man-muscle and anger rolling into the middle of the old man's path and snatching his bony ass up off the floor with one hand. With a grin that would make the Devil cringe in terror, Jayne snapped his head into Niska's face, bone and cartilage cracking under the impact.

Some thoughtful soul had put a spike on the wall, about head height. Jayne released Niska's throat, grabbed his wrist, and impaled the old man's hand on the convenient wall-spike.

The scream from that sent happy little tingles up his spine.

"Wonder how much 'o your boy's gunk is still on this thing?" Jayne asked, hefting the knife. His free hand snapped down, grabbing Niska's other arm by the wrist, and he pulled it up.

"Nice ring," Jayne said, looking at Niska's fingers. He was married, right? He wrapped an index finger around Niska's ring finger, pulling it back, and then placed the knife at the base of the digit.

The shocked, disbelieving horror on the old man's face made Jayne's heart leap, and his next pitiful cries of agony had it doing spinny jumping jacks as the knife sawed in, drawing blood. With a twist of his wrist, the ring finger spilt and came loose, crimson gushing over Jayne's bare chest.

Mmm-_mmm_, good.

"You like hurtin' little girls, _doncha_?" Jayne snarled into the wrinkled face, ignoring the blood slipping over his fingers. He pulled on the man's little finger, putting the knife to it. "Ain't quite so much fun when the little girl and the big _gorram_ bear start bitin' back, huh?"

The finger came loose with a little bit of wrist and twist, and Niska screamed in pain again. Jayne was starting on his middle finger, already wondering what he was going to do when he ran out of digits, when he heard a quiet, pained mumble behind him.

_River._

He spun around, dropping Niska's hand, seeing the girl hanging in the middle of the room, slack and still, her chest movement the only sign she was still alive. In the rage and the hate and the wrath, he'd forgotten all about-

He ran over to her, Niska completely forgotten, left to hang on the wall spike. His hands rose, fumbling, slick with the _hun dan's _blood as he worked the restraints, releasing the manacles from the ceiling. She dropped, a limp mass in the shape of a slip of a girl, and he caught her in his arms, gently bearing her down.

"Girl, you with me?" Jayne asked, looking for keys to her chains. The dead torturer at his feet had them, and he brought the little card key up, swiping it over her cuffs. The metal fell off her chafed wrists, and he took the knife and cut the cords around her ankles.

His bloody fingers ran up her face, slipping under the blindfold, and he pulled it off. She blinked a couple of times, eyes adjusting to the light, and those dark brown irises peered straight into his face. Red streaks smeared over her cheeks and around her eyes, and he tried wiping them off with the backs of his hands.

"Jayne," she whispered, and wetness welled up in her eyes, her face screwing up with pain and release and relief.

"S'okay, girl," he said, gently lowering her to the floor. "You're all right now, _dong ma_?"

"Hurts," she said, her voice barely audible over the alarms. "It hurts . . . aches and knives, glass under the skin . . . ."

"You're gonna be okay," he said, his voice nearly breaking to see her like this. Every part of his hardened, vicious, throat-slittin' self was falling apart right now, and he firmed his jaw, rising and turning toward Niska to finish the job. No more time to play games with him, just slice him open real mortal-like . . . .

The old man was gone, having torn himself off the wall spike and stumbled out the door, a trail of blood marking where he'd gone. Snarling, Jayne snatched up one of the dead guards' sidearms and ran out the portal after him. No way he was letting that _hun dan _get away with a couple of shredded fingers!

He wasn't in the antechamber, or the corridor beyond. The only thing Jayne saw were flashing lights and all he heard were alarm klaxons. He wanted to chase the bastard down, but River was all by herself in that shithole, and he couldn't leave her. Snarling in frustration, he turned and ran back to where River lay, her breathing slow and even as she stared at the ceiling.

"They're coming," she said as he knelt next to her.

"Yeah, we gotta get gone 'fore they find us," Jayne replied, remembering the screaming on Ariel and having no intention of that being him or her. And no way was he letting them Blue Hands or whatever take her back to wherever they'd cut her up. She'd had enough breakin' from Niska's people already.

"Not _them_," she said as he lifted her up. "Not two by two, not hands of blue."

"What?" he asked, shifting her around into a fireman's carry.

"Two by two, hands . . . of _red_," she said, staring at the floor. "Coming back, to take what was stolen, to bring them back to _Serenity_."

"Mal?" Jayne breathed. "They're here?" He heard her moan something, and he shifted her around so she was closer to his ears. If Mal and the others were comin' . . . there was some little bit of stupid hope left.

"Say again?" he asked.

"Home," she said, and she started crying into his neck, her body shivering with sobs. "I want to _go home, _Jayne."

"Me too," he hissed, and started out the door with the featherweight of little crazy person on his back. Pistol leading, Jayne Cobb stepped out of that hell chamber, and started their escape.

He was gonna get _her_ out of here, safe and sound, even if the whole _gorram_ Alliance stood in his way.

* * *

They had gotten possibly twenty meters past the first intersection when all hell broke loose.

A squad of Niska's goons were responding to the breach at the crew hatch, believing they were dealing with a second detachment from the main force assaulting the cargo bays. Instead, they ran headlong into a much smaller but significantly _angrier_ group of intruders.

Mal didn't let the first man raise his weapon. His rifle was already up and firing, drilling his target with two rapid bursts to the chest, shredding his torso. Beside him, Simon fired a burst as well, clipping another guard. The rest of the group down the passage dove for cover in alcoves and doorways, and _Serenity's_ crew did as well.

The shotgun in Wash's hands bucked, nearly ripping itself out of his grip if it hadn't been braced to his shoulder. The charged shots ripped up the wall next to his target, but didn't hit the guard as he dropped back behind cover. The pilot pumped the heavy weapon's action, while across the corridor, Zoe fired a burst from Jayne's massive assault rifle. The man Wash was firing at jerked and spun around, hit twice in the flank, and went still.

"Zoe, AP?" Mal called as he fired another burst. Simon crouched a couple meters behind him, weapon up and looking for a clear target.

"Loaded," she called back, and fired another shot. This one punched clean through the doorjamb one man was hiding behind, fracturing as it blew through the metal. The tungsten-core armor-piercing ammunition Jayne loved could puncture starship hulls, much less the interior walls. The round tore out its victim's stomach and left him writhing on the floor.

"Wash, Doc, covering fire," Mal ordered, taking a grenade off his belt. Simon gritted his teeth and leaned out, spraying fire down the passage. Return fire came back, but it was wild and uncoordinated. Wash's shotgun boomed in the narrow space. Zoe fired two single shots, killing another enemy trooper, and by that time Mal was rolling a grenade down the passage.

There was light and noise and heat, and the incoming fire was replaced by incoming screams. Blackened corpses littered the passage, amidst flickering lights. A couple of Niska's men were falling back, one man with his face burned badly.

Mal didn't let them escape. Two rapid bursts, and both men went down. His rifle's magazine clattered to the floor as he drew a fresh one. A quick nod sent Zoe and Wash ahead once he'd reloaded. They reached the next intersection, and she checked the corridors beyond while her husband swung around to cover their rear. Mal and Simon ran up behind them.

Simon's breath was catching in his throat, and he could see Wash's determined gaze, a total twist on the normally cheery pilot's demeanor. They all had a job to do, friends and family they were trying to save, and nothing would stop them.

"Kaylee, got some directions for us?" Mal called over the radio as they secured the intersection.

* * *

"Uh," she replied, trying to find where they were on the schematics. Her eyes flicked over the datapad hooked up to the wall.

It was hard when hot metal was ripping past mere inches from her face.

_"Kaylee, you okay?" _Mal called over the radio. She worked her fingers over the pad, trying to keep her hands steady and her legs from collapsing out from under her. Every time she got into a gunfight . . . .

"Just some shootin', Cap'n," she managed as Niska's goons paused in their assault. A few feet back, the Shepherd fired his rifle once, then twice, and a man howled in pain. There was a hiss of displaced air, the singing of a vibrating string, and another man went down with a grunt. Inara drew the string back on her torque bow, hunting for another target.

"Um, you're here," she muttered under her breath. "So, about a fifty meters down, I think, you'll see some stairs. 'firmary is one level up, I think."

"You think?" Mal asked. Bullets ricocheted off the wall near her, and she recoiled.

"Hope so," she replied uncertainly, and took a couple of hesitant shots.

* * *

Jayne had no idea where he was going. River was quiet, almost limp on his shoulder, but she was still breathing, and that was the important part. She'd stopped crying once they'd gotten out of that room, and that was even better. He gripped the pistol he held tightly, wishing he had more firepower.

"Crew hatch," she mumbled into his ear.

"Huh?" He kept the pistol raised as he moved down the dark corridor, light by flashing strobe lights and dim, pale white lamps.

"Mal," she said after a couple of seconds. "Zoe, Simon, everyone. Echoes off the metal, from the crew access hatch."

"Where's that?" Jayne said after a couple of seconds, deciphering her meaning.

"Dunno," she mumbled. He snorted, face screwing up into an annoyed scowl.

"Don't make faces," she grumbled into his ear, and Jayne was momentarily torn between shock and laughter. She was weak, battered, cut up, barely conscious, and still managed to be the same annoying little teenage _bitch_. He guessed no amount of hurt could ruin that little _feng le _part of her, just like Kaylee's cheeriness never vanished either.

Then Jayne heard boots pounding on the deck up ahead. Jayne held off his fire as they advanced, not sure if they were the enemy or his crew until he heard River's voice in his ear.

"Not them," she breathed, shivering. "Blackness. Niska. Hurting, _pain_, _fear_!"

Jayne dropped to one knee, gently setting her down, his eyes down the sights of his pistol. He checked to make sure she was out of sight in a little engineering alcove, safe from cross-fire, and then stepped out into the corridor.

A moment later, when two of Niska's black-clad guards came around the corner, he was firing. The first man jerked back, two rounds punching into his sternum, and the second one was dropping to cover when Jayne took him in the shoulder. As he fell, another pair of shots struck the guard in the stomach and throat.

The second pair of guards burst into the corridor with guns blazing, but Jayne was already taking cover in a doorway across the passage from where he'd dropped River. He aimed and fired, the pistol kicking in his hands, and one of the guards fell back, a graze cutting beneath his arm and along his flank. Jayne ducked back into cover when they sprayed his position, and found his hands shaking.

He was in almost as bad a shape as River, but he'd be damned if he'd admit it.

The guards advanced, firing bursts, and Jayne waited, clenching his weapon tightly. He knew the model, and had counted his shots; he only had a couple of rounds left in the magazine, and hadn't thought to grab extra ammo off the corpses in the torture chamber. Had to make these count. He coiled his legs underneath him, bullets ringing off the metal doorway ahead.

One of the guards remained crouched at a corner, covering his partner, while the other advanced up the passage. The man crept forward, on the opposite side of the hallway from Jayne. He waited, weapon ready, and then looked down, seeing movement.

River was pulling her legs underneath her, staring at the deck with that distant look on her face that said she wasn't using her _eyes_ at that moment. He almost warned her to stay back - the way she was shaking scared him in ways he didn't want to admit he was scared of - but held off speaking.

The guard came around, spinning and pointing his weapon at Jayne, and River shot to her feet, one leg lashing out and kicking the guard in the back. He stumbled forward, into proper knifing range, and Jayne snapped out Volsky's blade, cutting the man's throat. A quick grab redirected his momentum, slamming the dying man to the deck, and then Jayne spun out of cover.

His pistol fired once, then twice, and the fourth guard dropped.

He grabbed the dropped weapons from the corpses, gathering up extra ammunition, and looked toward River. The girl had slumped back to the deck, shivering and staring at the bodies as if she'd never been in combat before. Once he'd grabbed all the gear, Jayne crouched beside her, touching her shoulder.

She flinched, looking at him with a mixture of shock and terror, which quickly faded as her hands flew up around his neck.

"I gotcha," Jayne muttered pulling her up into another fireman's carry. He had no idea what was going on in that brainpan of hers, and part of him was very happy he didn't.

She clung to him as tightly as her brutalized muscles could manage, and Jayne soldiered on, determined that they'd both escape, even if he had to claw his way out with his bare hands.

* * *

Bullets scythed down the passage, tearing chunks out of the walls and spraying half-molten shards of metal everywhere. Mal crouched in a doorway, looking back at his assault team as they took cover as well. Simon was bandaging a graze Wash took while the pilot watched their backs, and Zoe was waiting, still and quiet, a _predator_.

Down the corridor, one of Niska's men was the proud owner of a high-caliber machinegun, the kind a squad carried for support. It was overkill in these crowded and narrow passages, but it did the job of keeping them pinned - and at the rate the thing was eating at their cover, it would start tearing up his team in under a minute.

"Zoe," Mal called, and she nodded. Mal's second took a grenade shell off her belt and fed it into the barrel of the launcher Jayne had installed on his favorite girl. With a flick of a switch, she activated a three second timer fuse on the projectile grenade, and shouldered Vera.

The launcher burped, the grenade flew out and hit the wall, bouncing off at an angle and flying down the corridor.

Mal was spinning out even as the flash and the shudders of the detonation filled the passage and saw a couple of bodies go tumbling forward. More of Niska's men stumbled out of cover, and he gunned them down with rapid shots. Zoe's fire lanced past Mal as he moved up the corridor, picking off more of Niska's goons as they rushed to support their beleaguered comrades.

The captain stopped at an alcove, firing and scoring another kill, and Zoe and Wash moved up. Behind him, Mal _felt_ more than heard Simon slide into place. The Doctor was proving to be a natural at this kind of thing, though his aim was as atrocious as ever. He'd gone through three magazines and only scored a few grazes and a shoulder shot.

Wash's shotgun roared, and one of Niska's men went flying back against the doorway he'd stepped out of. Three more enemy troops emerged from doors the team had passed, raising their weapons as they tried to ambush the attackers. Zoe whipped around as Wash let out a yell and dropped to the deck. his shotgun clattered across the floor, Zoe fired a quick pair of shots, and one of Niska's men hit the floor.

Rounds slashed toward them from ahead, as a trio of enemy troops tried to complete the pincer. Mal hit one in the throat, and Simon sprayed two quick, messy bursts that pinged one of the survivors in the leg. As he hit the deck, trying to crawl into cover, Mal put two into his flank.

Wash dragged his revolver out of his hip holster as Zoe fired several quick shots at the surviving enemy soldiers. One of them reeled, clutching his chest, and dropped to the deck. Zoe then stopped firing and lowered Vera, and the surviving soldier stepped out, raising his weapon toward her. Wash fired two blasts from his sidearm, just as Zoe brought up her sawed-off lever action with her left hand and fired from the hip. Wash's rounds hit the man dead center; Zoe's hip shot took him in the nose.

The last surviving guard leaned out and flung a grenade toward them. Mal and Simon let out complimentary curses and dove for cover, followed an instant later by Zoe, who grabbed Wash by the legs and dragged him into cover.

The corridor was filled with heat and pressure, and Mal rose shakily. The surviving guard was running toward them, rifle shouldered. There was the distant roar of gunfire cutting through momentary deafness, and the guard came to a halt, sliding forward onto his knees and then coming to a halt beside Mal.

Simon held his submachinegun with steady hands, looking down at the body, and then he slowly changed magazines.

"Finally got one, huh?" Mal asked, to which he shrugged.

"Took three in the cargo bay, earlier," he admitted, and Mal's eyebrows rose in surprise.

"Wash hurt?" he called to Zoe as she and her husband came out of the doorway.

"Eyebrows are singed," Wash muttered with a half pout, picking up his shotgun.

"Stairwell's thirty meters that way," Zoe said, and Mal nodded, gesturing for her to take the lead. She and Wash advanced, covered by Mal and Simon, and they followed a few moments later.

* * *

They'd passed the infirmary about twenty meters back, and now he had no idea where to go. Jayne slowed as they reached an intersection, keeping his eyes downrange. Niska _should_ have been there, what with his finger count having been reduced, but the old _hun dan_ was nowhere to be found.

Her hands clenched his shoulder tightly, and Jayne stopped. River's body went tense and tight against him, her breathing suddenly still.

"What is it?" he asked, crouching at the intersection.

"I hear them," she whispered. "Armor, rifles, tracking locks."

"Huh?" Jayne said. "Girl, you gotta speak clear for me to-"

"Hands of _blue_!" she screamed, and then gunfire slammed into the metal around him. He cursed, ducking back as ricochets erupted off the walls and floor, armored figures storming into the corridor ten and twenty meters down. They were firing from the hip, on the move, and it was a miracle neither of the pair were hit.

Jayne returned fire, the submachinegun in his hands bouncing as he tried to suppress the enemy, even as he ducked into an alcove.

He then recognized the armor, and a frightened chil knifed through himl.

Alliance troops.

"No, no, _can't_ take me, don't let them _take_ me," River was mumbling, eyes pinched tight as he set her down. Jayne leaned out, firing a carefully-aimed burst, and was rewarded with the fountain of blood as an Alliance trooper went down, his face shattered. Then more rounds smashed into the cover he was hiding behind, and he dropped back, snarling in a dozen different dialects.

"Won't be taken, won't be _drilled_ and _cut_ anymore," River moaned, clutching the sides of her head.

"Shut up and let me shoot!" Jayne was saying. "Unless you want to-"

"Assassin, _machine_, im_planted_, son of _a bitch doctors _with their-" she was rambling, and then she stopped, fingers clasping the empty air.

Then, she _screamed_, and Jayne felt one of the stolen pistols slide out of an equally stolen holster.

_"You want her back?" _she screeched, her voice hurting Jayne's ears, and he looked up to see her spin out of cover, the pistol raised, her eyes wide and manic, terror and desperation and grief etched in her face.

The handgun cracked, and an Alliance trooper went down, a round punching cleanly through his faceplate.

"This is what you _want_? This is what you _made_, and _you want it back_?" She was yelling, walking forward, the pistol blasting away. Single shots lanced down the passage, her hand twitching toward targets as tears flowed down her face. Men grunted and yelled, falling to the ground. Return fire was hesitant and sporadic.

"Not yours, _never yours_, won't be _again_!" River kept firing, stalking down the passage, hand and legs and body shaking, but the weapon in her hand was as steady as a drifting battleship.

Her weapon's magazine ran out, and silence filled the corridor. River stood there, a few meters in front of Jayne, in the center of the intersection, trembling and sobbing, still pulling the trigger, the weapon clicking away in her hands. None of the Alliance troops were moving; she'd pegged them all with that scary accuracy of hers.

He saw movement down the corridor, past her, beyond the half-dozen dead soldiers littering the passage. Two figures, clad in . . . business suits? Holding pistols, in hands gloved in . . . in _bright blue_.

Oh,_ shit_.

Jayne bolted to his feet, running up toward her as she stood, staring at the two men.

One of them opened his mouth.

"_Eta kooram nah smech," _he called.

River recoiled as if struck, and spun toward Jayne, fear cutting across her features.

"Jayne," she breathed, stumbling toward him. "Ad-adren . . . ." Her eyes closed, unable to resist the insidious, undeniable words, triggering the imbedded safe codes in her mind.

She toppled into him, and he caught her, looking back toward the gloved men as they calmly walked down the passage, their eyes boring into him with something that shook him to his core.

* * *

"Two, on your left," Book called, dropping back behind cover. Bullets scythed past, screaming off the wall.

"I see them," Inara breathed, her aim steady. She was still, motionless, a statue wreathed in fine silks, tucked away invisibly in an alcove with only the barest hint of her torque bow's leading tip peeking out from cover.

The bow hissed. A singing tone of displaced air from the vibrating string, and a cry of agony down the passage. A man fell to the ground.

Book fired two quick shots, and someone else yelled in pain. Boots could be heard down the passage as the injured man tried to flee. Inara took aim, drew another arrow, and let fly. The boot-steps cut off, replaced by a single crash of a heavy body on metal.

_"We're at the stairwell," _Mal called over the radio. Kaylee ducked back behind cover, unable to see the battle progress as Book and Inara held off Niska's men. Only the occasional carefully-chosen gunshot or whisper of a firing arrow was audible in the background as she checked the datapad.

"Up one level, cap'n," she said, her voice low and quiet. She tried quelling the anxiety in her voice. "Then forward thirty meters to the intersection, and a left should take you past the infirmary."

_"Copy," _he replied, quick and terse, and there were gunshots over the radio.

Kaylee looked back up at the battle, seeing Inara and Book still standing where they had been, putting down precise and accurate fire ion the troops trying to advance on them. She fervently wished she could be as cool and collected as they were. Book fired another single shot, and Inara loosed an arrow. She frowned, and reached for another one as Book paused to reload.

Kaylee checked the datapad again, seeing Inara out the corner of her eye as she tried to isolate the ship's internal sensors. Knowing where the badguys were - or finding Jayne and River - would be a big help . . . .

Inara jerked.

Kaylee looked up, and was struck at that moment at just how graceful the Companion was. She stopped, turned away, and slid to one knee in a way that seemed to flow, a cascade of water down a series of stones, soundless, steady, perfect.

Then Kaylee saw blood fountaining from the gunshot wound in Inara's torso.

* * *

He slung River over his shoulder and started running back the way they'd come. He couldn't let them catch her.

What had she said? "Adren?" What was "adren?"

They passed the infirmary, and a flash of memory hit him.

Zoe, dying in the infirmary on _Serenity_, after the explosion in the engine core. The Doc, pulling out a giant honkin' syringe of "pure adrenaline" and jabbing her in the heart with it.

Without thinking, Jayne changed direction and dashed into the infirmary. He slammed the doors closed and locked them from the inside, and plopped his unconscious burden on one of the tables. His huge ham hands started yanking on drawers, throwing them open.

Pounding on the doors. Shit, shit, _shit_.

No adrenaline here. Nothing like the tubes he'd seen in the med bay back home. He crossed the room, opening another set of drawers.

The pounding intensified, and he glanced at the door, to see a spark of light in the middle, where the doors came together and locked. _Shit!_

Another drawer emptied, no tubes. He yanked the ext one open, praying-

Yellow syringes, marked "adrenaline" in thick plastic wrappers.

Jayne tore it off as he ran across the room. He hovered over River's body, trying to remember what the Doc had done. He'd jabbed it right into Zoe's heart, clean through the collarbone.

Could River even survive having that much adrenaline in the chest, the state she was in?

Better die here than go back, he thought, and held the needle over her chest, just over her left breast. His arms pumped down, hard, one palm depressing the syringe. The adrenaline poured into her body, and the door flew open behind him.

The Hands of Blue swept into the infirmary, and Jayne whipped around, snapping up his pistol and firing. One, two, three shots, direct into center mass of the nearest suited man.

He barely flinched, and Jayne Cobb had less than a heartbeat to react before the man had crossed the room, one blue-wreathed hand slapping aside his pistol while the other punched him dead center in the chest.

The next thing he knew, Jayne was slamming into the far wall of the infirmary, his pistol clattering away. His head swam, not sure what the hell had just happened, but the Blue Hand fellow was circling around the beds, a gun in hand. He spotted Jayne, and the mercenary scrambled to his feet, pulling out another weapon.

The bay was filled with the crack of a blasting pistol, and the Hand jerked. He looked back, pieces of his suit ripped off as rounds slammed into his body.

River was sitting straight, a handgun gripped in her little fingers, the syringe poking out of her chest like a macabre medal. She was staring straight at the other Hand, not even looking as she emptied her weapon's magazine into the one about to kill Jayne.

The handgun ran empty, and Jayne was firing as fast as possible, pumping round after round into the Hand facing him. The man flinched, frowning in what could only be _annoyance_, and raised his weapon just as Jayne crashed into him, bearing them both down to the floor.

River leapt off the bed, dropping her spent weapon, and without a sound she went at the Hand in front of her. Her arms flew up, a quick, savage weave of rapid, flurrying strikes. The Hand snapped his arms up, catching the rain of blows, his limbs moving nearly as fast as River's. Pale fingers and blue-gloved hands thudded and impacted, and he rushed forward, straight into her assault. Knuckles and a knee smashed into his chest, but they didn't even register as he calmly batted her arms aside and grabbed River by the throat, gloved fingers digging into her neck. Fear flashed into her eyes, her hands scrabbling at his chest, and he spun, flinging her away.

Jayne managed to get in a single good slug before the Hand beneath him jerked his arm up and almost casually batted Jayne aside. He rolled across the room, and came to a stop just as the other man threw River across the room like a sack of clothes.

There was a harsh ripping sound, the suit torn open by her death-gripping fingers, and beneath it Jayne saw the skintight blue covering hidden under the clothes.

"_Ho-tze duh pi gu,"_ Jayne hissed in shock and disbelief.

Power armor. They were wearing _powered armor_ beneath those suits.

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** Aw, dammit, Niska got away. Apparently he read the parts of the Evil Overlord's List that detail setting up escape routes.

One element of "Ariel" that I really liked was the sense of impending danger and doom that the Hands of Blue brought on when they arrived. There was a very dark aura about their calm, clinical, but brutal nature. I wanted to expand on their abilities and the danger they represent as not simply enemy agents, but as enemies _themselves_. To put it simply, River is _scared _of the Hands, and there's a _reason_ why she's scared of them - they aren't simply representative of the Academy, they are implacable agents and incredibly dangerous opponents. Plus, you know that blue bodysuit underneath their suits has some use other than being all ominious and scary.

Oh, and Inara got shot to. Little thing there, I'm certain that's not going to result in all manner of character development later on. Nope. None whatsoever.

Yeah, _right_.

Also, next chapter, expect some downright brutal hand-to-hand combat. Jayne and River in close-combat with government assassins equipped with power armor. Hoo boy.

Until next chapter . . . .


	10. Chapter Nine: Adrenaline

_**

* * *

**_

Chapter Nine: Adrenaline

Well, it wasn't in Jayne Cobb to run from a fight, especially when he couldn't run in the first place. The two men in blue certainly looked like they weren't about to let him get away anyhow, and more importantly, they weren't going to let him get away with River in tow.

Jayne Cobb could be called a lot of things. Traitor, sell-out, self-centered _pi gu _asshole bastard murdering son-of-a-bitch, and so on and so forth, but he wasn't about to let these _hun dans _haul the girl back to that hellhole, not after what she'd been through today and especially after how much bacon she'd risked saving his own in the past.

The one good thing about the Hands' armor was it didn't block kinetic impacts very well; it would stop a bullet and redistribute the force behind the round, but you got something large enough with enough momentum - like, say, an enormous two-hundred and fifty-plus mass of muscle and bone - slamming into them, they'd go down.

Jayne tackled the closest Hand, the one that had thrown River, and smashed him into the cabinets lining one wall of the infirmary. Even as he felt the impact against the wall and counter, Jayne's hands closed around the front of the Hand's suit and started picking him up, fully intent on picking the man up and throwing him as hard as he could.

The Hand's blue-gloved arms weaved inside Jayne's grip, snapping out and throwing his arms out wide. There was a flash of motion, and then Jayne rocked back, hitting one of the hospital beds as his jaw throbbed in agony. The Hand pushed off the counter, straight into Jayne, his arms striking fast and hard, slamming into his wounded stomach a dozen times in half as many seconds.

He grunted through the pain, and his left arm rose, fingers snatching the Hand's right wrist. He spun, turning with the momentum of the striking fist, pulling the Hand forward even as Jayne sidestepped. His right arm flew up, the balling knuckles of Jayne's right fist crashing into the bastard's jaw and knocking his head back. Without slowing, Jayne's arms reached up, grabbing the back of the man's head, and he smashed it down onto the bed. The Hand bounced off, stumbling backward, and Jayne moved to pursue, trying to recover the upper hand.

The agent recovered faster than he'd expected, and even as the merc rumbled toward him, he set his feet and lashed out with another lightning-fast flurry of fists. The blows crashed into Jayne's chest and stomach, halting his advance as surely as a concrete wall, and then two alternating hooks to the head had him spinning and reeling. A crack of lightning struck Jayne's chest - in reality, a sudden, unexpected snap-kick by the Hand - and the mercenary went tumbling across the room, his lower back connecting hard with one of the immobile bed. He rolled over it, the white floor rising up to _clonk_ him in the face.

"_Gorram_ it," he mumbled as he lay on the floor, before starting to push himself back up. This was a whole lot meaner a fight than he was used to.

Something grabbed his shoulder, and he twisted, grasping the arm. The Hand almost casually batted Jayne's response aside, and then a set of blue-gloved fingers gripped his throat, hard and tight and unyielding, and Jayne was pressed down against the tiles.

* * *

She could hear the ocean.

Her spine wanted to _sh_a_**k**_e. Her eyes wanted to _water_. Her hands wanted to _**tremble**_. _Their_ hands were closing around her, clenching her throat, pulling her close, _carrying_ her back, **holding** her down, **digging **_**into**_** her brain**.

She wanted to be scared.

It didn't let her. **Liquid fire **didn't let her be afraid. Jayne had poured it into her heart, blood leaking out of the little hole in her chest, splashing over sweat-covered body as she _danced._

The waves crashed around her, blue hands descending, and she _answered_ with motion, with memory, with **wrath**.

The needle of liquid fire was in her hand, dripping with her own blood, a sliver of _sterilized steel_ tasting her life, pumping traces of raw _motion_ through her trembling form. It snapped out, _slashing and thrusting_, deadly and **narrow**.

He blocked. His hands moved fast, flowing and twisting, aided by thing adhering to his flesh. A flow, a dance, _step_, turn, duck, **thrust**, punch, **drop**, kick, _pivot_, duck-

impact

Cold floor sliding along her skin. No, that was incorrect, illogical. The floor didn't slide, it was immobile, fitted with artificial gravity plating. _She_ was moving. Perceptions clouded, burns along her face as she slid, _presence_ closing toward her.

_Legs out_. Tiptoes on the floor, back snapping in a single motion, grace, elegance, _dance recital_ flickering into her mind.

He came at her again, blue hands of **blue** - cold, distant, aquatic, but not _**water**_, cold _water_, ice, _freezing_ - striking at her. The needle intercepted, scratching along the armor. He recoiled, and she saw a page in his book flip. Duck, _hair swishing along the floor_, leg lashing out, connecting with a kneecap. Power armor blocked it.

The ocean _roared_ in her ears as he came forward, blasting through her feet and defenses, arms cutting and chopping. Gasps of thought, _whispers_ of motion. Couldn't block, he was **too strong**, too powerful in _powered_ **power** of heated fury and _c_**ha**O**s** water _hate fear _**touching inside**-

_adrenaline, clouding thoughts_-

Another **impact**. **Pain**, through the liquid fire blazing her veins.

Cold floor soothing her burning skin, and he stood over her. The pain gave clarity.

The ocean rumbled and hissed, beating against her skull.

The needle in her hands stabbed up between his eyes.

* * *

The screeching rasps of ricochets deflecting off metal assaulted Mal's ears, and he dropped back, snarling a colorful array of lethal verbiage. He peeked back out into the stairwell and leaned back immediately, nearly getting his head shot off for his troubles.

Someone was upstairs, on the level above them, firing down the narrow crew stairwell that connected this deck and the ones up above. In the dim emergency lighting, he couldn't see who it was, or how many were firing at them.

"Kaylee," he yelled into his earpiece. "Kaylee! This ship should have locators, I need positions!" He heard something over the radio, a murmur.

"Again?" he called, as Zoe fired a couple of shots up the stairwell. She ducked back, changing Vera's magazine, her eyes locked on the stairwell itself. Behind them, Wash and Simon milled about, covering their backs.

The murmur came again, followed a moment later by a couple of gunshots. The voice sounded like Kaylee's, but the way she was talking sent a sudden chill up Mal's spine.

_"Captain," _came a sudden, solid voice, Shepherd Book. Another gunshot rang out over the radio, and Zoe fired a burst close to Mal's ear.

"Shepherd?" Mal asked. "What's goin' on back there?"

_"No time," _he replied over the radio. _"We're in trouble. Falling back to the ship." _Mal's face locked up tight. _That_ wasn't good news. Whatever was happening, they were in a bad way back there.

"Zoe, we're runnin' out of time," he called, and she nodded. Reaching into her belt, she pulled out an incendiary projectile grenade and loaded it into Vera's launcher. The round slid in, and she leaned out.

"Prepare to move up," Mal called back to the others, and Zoe pulled the trigger, firing with a half-glance up the stairwell.

There was a roar of fire, the screams and shrieks of men caught in the white-hot flash of inferno, and then Mal and Zoe were charging up the steps. Two men were toppling forward, faces savaged by heat and uniforms ablaze. Rapid gunshots took them down, and it wasn't until Mal stepped over the bodies that he recognized their outfits: Alliance marine armor.

They burst into the fire-scorched hallway at the top of the stairs, finding more bodies, some blackened from the blast of hellish heat. More gunfire ripped down the passage, though, and Mal ducked into an alcove, firing as he went. Zoe banged off two quick rounds, taking another Alliance trooper in the gut, and then shots cut past them from the opposite direction, one thudding against her armor and pitching the woman off her feet.

Simon and Wash were charging into the corridor as the pincher closed on both sides, Alliance soldiers trying to trap them. Mal waved a hand frantically as Simon sprayed rounds up the corridor. Zoe rolled over onto her stomach and pushed herself to the side, sliding over the floor and into another alcove. Wash's shotgun roared, and another soldier fell back, howling as charged buckshot grazed his body.

"Get to cover!" the Captain yelled, firing a quick burst, and the pilot and doctor dropped back to the doorway before the enemy troops could cut them down. Gunfire scythed back and forth in the corridor, and as Mal took another careful shot, he realized they had been trapped in a simple but effective pincher. All it would take would be a couple of grenades to wipe them out.

Mal chose to do the only thing he could do: keep killing the sons of bitches until there weren't any left.

* * *

"Oh, God, Inara," Kaylee moaned, crouching beside the Companion. She looked down at the older woman's torso, crimson flowing from the dark wound in her chest. For her part, the Companion seemed more in shock than pain, and after a couple of seconds she reached up and began pressing one of her slender hands against the small crater.

The round had hit her high and on her left, between her shoulder and breast. There was blood - _lots_ of it, and Kaylee's hands hovered, uncertain. Gunshots erupted nearby, and then there were shoes hitting the deck beside her. She looked up, reaching for her weapon in fear, and saw Book crouching beside her.

"That's not good," he said, calm concern on his face as he looked over Inara's wound.

"It doesn't _feel_ that good," she managed to reply, and Book nodded, turning away and firing a barrage down the passage to discourage an advance. Kaylee was still trying to figure out what to do when her radio chirped, and they could hear Mal call something. She reached down, picking it up, but didn't speak, unable to say anything. The others getting shot, hurt, was familiar, but Inara being hurt was something-

"Captain," Book said, grabbing the radio from Kaylee and firing his weapon one-handed. He glanced back to Kaylee, catching her eyes, and gave her a quick nod of reassurance. Mal was yelling over the radio, gunfire sounding from his end.

"No time," he barked, firing another round. "We're in trouble. Falling back to the ship." With that, he pocketed the radio and turned toward Kaylee.

"Get her up," he hissed, looping an arm under Inara's shoulder. His words and actions galvanized Kaylee, and she reached forward, grabbing and looping one of Inara's arms over her shoulder the way Jayne had showed her some months back. With a light grunt, she straightened, and Inara pushed herself up as well. As an afterthought, Kaylee grabbed her fallen torque bow with her free hand.

"Back to the ship," Book added, his voice carrying a tone of authority and command she hadn't heard in a long time. The way he spoke got her legs moving, and Kaylee and Inara started limping back up the passage, gunfire ripping through the air behind them as the Shepherd covered their backs.

"C'mon, 'Nara," she said, more to herself than to the Companion, who was still walking partway under her own power. "Gotta get back inside."

There was so much blood . . . .

* * *

He was pushing down even as he choked Jayne, as if the _hun dan _was trying to drive him straight down into the deck plates. The strength in those powered hands was frightening and unbreakable; he struck at the suited agent with his bare palms, but the grip was solid iron.

Then, as black spots began to appear in Jayne's vision and a tightness began to stretch across his face, Jayne's combat instincts reminded him that though the Blue Hand was strong-

His legs snapped up, wrapped around one of the man's own, and the mercenary's body snapped around in a single motion that used every muscle in his body. The man toppled over in surprise, and bonked his head on one of the solid, bolted down infirmary beds.

-he still had human weight and balance.

Jayne was up on his feet, a hair behind the Hand. Almost immediately, the mercenary's arms lanced out, grabbing the _hun dan _by the front of his jacket, and he whirled, lifting the man up and flinging him with all the strength he could muster. The agent went through the air crashing into another bed and rolling over the top, sprawled out on the cold floor.

Jayne leapt over the bed, snarling, knowing he couldn't let this bastard recover. He was on the Hand in an instant, punching and smashing, fists hammering into the man's face. One, two, three vicious hits, blood running down the sprawled man's nose.

Then Jayne was launched backward, pain blossoming in his gut as the Hand kicked him in the stomach, almost contemptuously. The agent stood up, crimson flowing freely from his nose, as Jayne _thunked_ against another of the bolted-down beds. The mercenary shoved off of the bed, ignoring the pain, and rushed right back into the fray, trying to tackle the Hand before he could draw his sidearm.

The agent sidestepped as Jayne came in, moving fast - _fast as River_, Jayne belatedly realized - and snapping an arm into Jayne's lower back as he passed. Agony lanced up his spine, and the mercenary tumbled into one of the counters, throwing aside cartons of medicines and whatever-they-weres, including what he swore were a couple of metal bedpans. He spun back toward the Hand, only to take a murderously powerful punch to the gut.

A blue-gloved palm planted itself against his face and smacked his head back against the wall. Jayne's head exploded with pain, and he felt himself being spun around. An arm locked itself around his throat, pressing solidly against his windpipe, and began to squeeze. The mercenary flailed, trying to grab the man behind him or break the Hand's grip, but the unyielding power armor did not budge, nor did Mr. Armant's calm, empty expression change as he choked the massive mercenary to death.

* * *

The needle **wrapped in blue**, _yanked_ out of _weak fingers_. _**Twitching**_ muscles, flipping over and kicking up. Walls, environment, _assessment_. **Mind pulse**. Putting power into awareness, _seeing __**everything**_.

Two hundred and eighty-four possible improvised weapons in the environment, at a quick glance _without her eyes_. Seventeen close enough that she could reach them in time to put them to use, if the blue fingers weren't so close.

His mind was closed. She couldn't see his _pages_, **locked up tight**. Metronomes and variables dancing inside his skull, blocking out her instincts, her _eyes_, her _ears_. He was _**blank**_ to her, as featureless as the blue armor underneath.

Bone and skin and synthetic **collided**, twisting, fists and fingers and feet flowing around each other. Knees bent, hair flashed along the floor, her nose nearly _kissing_ the tiles as her torso dropped under one of his kicks. Rising uppercut to the jaw, he rocked back, her knuckles _**protested**_.

Mal said you never punch a man with a closed fist. This case wasn't very hilarious, either.

More dancing, more _synthetic on flesh _as she blocked and parried. Arms began to ache, **bruises** building on pale skin, complaining as she deflected the strikes. Bare feet slipping backwards, had to keep balance, had to _shift_ her stance. Movements ingrained by years of training, buried _into neural network_ by their **needles**, supplemented by superconducting boosters-

What? _What was that? _Something that _**wasn't hers**_, something she'd pulled from Doctor Mathias? _Neurosurgery, chemical treatments, lobotomized enhancement . . . ._

He pressed in, and her mind whirled. Too many thoughts, _too much __**chaos**_. Fragments of _bio-RAM _going every direction, _thinking parts _aligned one way, distracted by _**string**_, brain stem and muscles remembering - _neuromuscular facilitation_ - keeping him back off of her

The Hand struck her dead center in her chest, where Volsky had cut. The pain, _**pain**_, shooting through her, cut **reopening** through the bandage, blood leaking from the rent. That pain, _fresh_, _**harsh**_, chafing wrists, _blinded, _cutting, lightning and thunder, business, _**hate**_, punching, hands sliding _down her waist_, about to **rip** through and _into_ her and the _ocean _was crashing down on

Her defenses collapsed, physically and mentally, and River Tam screamed.

The blue fingers snaked _through_ her, grabbing her around the neck as she stumbled to her knees. She shook, sobbing as the _torture_ crashed through her, the _**liquid fire **_in her blood dying down, thoughts and faces and _pain_ and _gunfire_ pressing in all around.

Then, across the room, she caught a flash of thought, a burst of hatred, and then _red._

* * *

They were pinned, at least two Alliance marines on either end of the corridor. The crossfire was making it nearly impossible to return fire without taking hits of their own, and the quartet were running out of options. Unlike Niska's goons, the Alliance troops were staying solidly behind cover, barely exposing themselves.

Mal edged his rifle out of cover, firing a burst, and then ducked back. Return fire leapt toward him, and he saw Zoe shift her aim. She gently squeezed the trigger on Vera, and a volley of armor-piercing rounds erupted from the enormous rifle, slamming into the wall the Alliance trooper was hiding behind. He jerked as the rounds punctured the wall and slammed into his armor, and fell out of cover for an instant. Mal drilled him twice.

Mal wondered if Zoe was going to give Vera back to Jayne, she seemed to be enjoying it so much.

The gunfire cut toward them again, this time with renewed vigor; the Alliance troops weren't taking the deaths of their comrades well. Wash fired his shotgun and pumped the action, waiting for Simon to spray another stream of rounds at the marines on the other side of the corridor. He waited, tense, and tried to calm down, watching for movement. Simon ran out of ammo and ducked back, reloading as smoothly as he could manage.

Mal and Zoe opened fire on the marine on the other end of the corridor at once, and the pair Wash and Simon were facing started to move up. They got within a dozen meters when Wash stepped out and blasted the nearest man, charged shot ripping into his armor and slamming him against the wall. He lay there, stunned and bleeding, and his comrade ducked into an alcove.

Wash saw a chance, and before he could second guess himself, he bolted forward, pumping his shotgun's action. He heard a yell behind him, sounding like his wife, but he ignored it. Within a couple of seconds he bounded over the fallen marine and spun around the alcove the remaining one was hiding behind, and he found his shotgun pointing down at the crouching, surprised soldier, hot barrel almost touching his armor. The pilot fired without thinking, and _felt_ more than _heard_ the dead man hit the deck.

He sensed motion behind him, and Wash spun, belatedly realizing the other marine was still alive and was raising his rifle in shaky hands. He dove back, dropping the shotgun and pulling out his revolver. The weapon roared as he fired one, then two quick shots. The first bounced off the bulkhead behind the downed marine, but the second hit the man in the jaw, shattering the bone and punching straight through to his neck. The corpse slumped back against the wall, and was still.

There was silence in the passage, quickly replaced by boots hammering the deck, and Zoe came around the corner, to see a blood-stained but very alive husband fumbling with his shotgun. He tried to slow his breathing, not even realizing he'd been panting so hard, and he peered up at his wife as she stood over him. Zoe's mouth quirked up, and she extended her hand.

He took it, and she hauled him up, as Mal and Simon ran up to the pair.

"Got the last one thataway," the Captain said. "Let's move up, gotta get the others and get out quick."

"Right," Wash replied, nodding, and pumped his shotgun, loading another shell.

* * *

He couldn't break the _hun dan's _grip. Too strong, too powerful, too clinical. The son-of-bitch was calm, controlled, emotionless almost.

That emotionlessness ended rather abruptly when Jayne's arms reached back over his head, and he drove his thumbs into the Hand's eyes.

The man finally let out a sound, a cry of shocked pain, and his grip loosened. Jayne's arms snapped away and down, toward the counter, and he whipped around. One of the metal bedpans he'd seen earlier crashed into the Hand's head, and the man reeled.

Then, he heard River scream, and the sound blasted rational thought out of his mind. Jayne Cobb looked down at the man before him, and saw _red_.

The pan smashed down again, then again, and then _again_. Each swing just heightened his flash of rage, his arms pumping faster and harder, and every impact brought the metal piss-holder down harder on the bastard's skull. The Hand dropped to his knees, stunned, and Jayne crashed the pan down again. This time, the Hand's arms rose in a clumsy block, and the pan impacted against his power armor so hard it _bent_.

Jayne dropped it, spinning around while the Hand was still stunned. The agent started to rise, his legs shaky, when Jayne came around, more metal glinting in his fingers. With a snarl, he crashed into the Hand again, throwing the both of them to the floor, and his arm rose and shot down.

The scalpel he was holding drove into the Hand's windpipe.

His eyes widened, and blue fingers rose up to shove Jayne off. Wrath flowed through his veins, a sweet nectar of rage and hate, and the mercenary started dragging the scalpel through his victim's throat. The agent was fighting, shock and terror on his face as his blood erupted from severed arteries. Jayne drew it out a bit, slowly pulling the through his skin. He was a _bad man_, no two buts about it, and right now this was one of the reasons why.

Wrath, the most productive sin of all.

The Hand's fighting slackened, his muscles giving out as air stopped flowing to his brain, and his blood pooled on the white tile decking. His suit was stained an even darker shade, crimson pooling on the synthetic coating on his skin, and he finally went still.

Jayne Cobb ripped the scalpel out of his victim's throat and stood, satisfaction rolling off him, and his eyes hunted for the other sack of _go se _to cut up.

* * *

He hauled River's battered body up, gripping her throat, pressing on her arteries to constrict blood flow to her brain. She fought, weakly, hands thrashing against his armored body, but Domali's grip did not break. He heard Jayne rise up from Armant's corpse, whirling on him with a bloody scalpel in hand.

Domali's pistol rose, and he turned his head, meeting Jayne's gaze as the enraged mercenary barreled toward him, snarling, bloody, savage. The barrel of the weapon was set dead center on his chest.

River groaned, eyes wide with terror and desperation, her arms slashing up and striking at Domali's hand even as his fingers tightened over the trigger.

A gunshot rang out in the infirmary, and Jayne came to a dead halt, eyes expanding in shock.

Domali's pistol lowered, and then his blue-gloved fingers slackened around River's throat. Then, with a dull, meaty thud, he hit the floor, blood gushing from his temple.

Malcolm Reynolds strode into the room, sweeping the room with his pistol, the barrel still hot. Jayne stared at him, eyes flicking between the body and the Captain, his _red-filled_ mind trying to process what he saw. It took him a second to form words.

" . . . Captain?" he said, not sure if he should believe what he was staring at. Behind Mal, Simon, Zoe, and Wash tumbled into the infirmary. The mercenary's gaze was pulled toward the rest of the heavily-armed crew, and when Simon spoke, his eyes fixed on the doctor and his sister.

_"River!" _Simon cried out, jaw dropping as he ran to his sister's side, who had fallen back against one of the counters, staring at the Hand's corpse and shaking. Her fingers rose up to her face, the shivering intensifying as her brother reached her, putting his hands on her shoulders. Her eyes snapped up to her brother's face, not comprehending for a couple of seconds.

"Simon?" she breathed.

River grabbed him, pulling him tight, and went limp, exploding into a torrent of sobs. He dropped the submachinegun and pulled her close, whispering soothing words into his sister's ears.

Jayne spent a long second staring at the two of them. He heard his voice.

"Jayne," Mal was saying, waving his hand in front of the mercenary, and he pulled his eyes away, meeting the Captain's. "You all there?" Mal glanced between the merc and the brother and sister, and raised an eyebrow. Behind him, Wash was watching River and Simon, the pilot's expression concerned and worried, seeming suddenly helpless in spite of the enormous shotgun he held in his hands.

"Nothin'," Jayne Cobb muttered, and his attention shifted as Zoe stepped around, holding out-

"Is that Vera?" he said, voice half full of elation and halfway packed with indignation. Zoe had taken his girl? _His_ Vera?

"Looks like," she replied, handing it to him, and his hands reached up, the reassuring metal sliding between his blood-soaked fingers. He took the rifle, checked her, and managed a pained, smug grin.

"Wasn't . . . "Jayne said, his hands wrapping around his favorite girl, and he looked back up at Mal. "Wasn't sure you'd come for us."

"Well, you're a moron for thinkin' that," Mal replied with a slight smile. It faded a moment later, and he looked the brutalized mercenary over. "You still capable?"

Jayne exhaled. His body ached, he suspected he had broken ribs from the Hands, bruises, contusions, concussion maybe, and some of that damn toxin from Volsky's blade was still in his skin, paining him something fierce. His muscles were exhausted, his head was swimming, and he had to take a monster of a piss.

"Good to go, Captain," he said, standing straight. Mal mulled it for a moment, and nodded, before looking back to Simon and River. The Doc had pulled her away from him and was giving her a quick examination. He was trying to ask her questions, but she was just shaking and crying, unable to reply coherently. Whatever she'd been holding onto to keep herself standing this long, it had finally given out at their rescue.

"Doc, can she-"

"No condition to fight," he said quickly. "God . . . I don't know how she's still conscious, with these injuries."

"Adrenaline," Jayne grunted. "She had me put her on a full syringe. The Hands used that word that knocks-"

"A full syringe of liquid adrenaline?" Simon's eyes widened, and he looked back at River, whose eyes were getting blurry. "We have to get her back to the ship, I need to check her vitals."

"I got-" Jayne said, stepping forward, reaching toward River. Then, to his surprise, Wash slid in between them. With a nod to Simon, the pilot slung his shotgun and picked River up. The mercenary stood still for a moment, not sure what to do, and she looked up, her eyes focusing for just an instant.

"Can't carry two girls, Jayne," she mumbled, her words slurred. "Want to go home."

"We'll get you there, honey," Wash assured her, and Jayne nodded. He hefted Vera, before moving through the doorway out of the infirmary.

"Jayne, where are you-" Mal said, following. Zoe was already outside, covering the corridor with her long rifle.

"Gettin' her an' all the rest of us out of this ruttin' shithole," he growled back. "You comin'?"

* * *

Kaylee had gotten Inara back to the boarding ramp without getting shot. The Shepherd followed, firing as he retreated, keeping their pursuers pinned down. With the mechanic focused on getting Inara through the airlock door and back on the ship, she hadn't had a chance to see who was pursuing them.

Book had, and while he'd learned decades before to control his fear, his apprehension was growing. He knew the uniforms of Alliance troops, the bulky, heavy full body armor of an assault force boarding a heavily defended ship. A squad of them had arrived during the gunfight with Niska's troops, and had quickly dispatched and replaced the mercenaries.

It was _they_ who had shot Inara, and it seemed to only be due to luck that they missed the Shepherd as he retreated back to the ship. But then, he didn't believe in luck very much, not in the face of divine providence.

Still, he knew how useless wounding shots would be against Alliance infantry in full armor. Their gear protected them from injuries to otherwise easy-to-hit but non-lethal areas like the biceps, calves, or thighs. There _were_ vulnerabilities, ones he knew well, but aiming for them meant there was no turning back.

He had already killed a dozen such men on Haven. Hypocrisy at its finest, serenity replaced by anger and rage leaking through a bloody, pain-filled haze. He hadn't deserved salvation; some part of the Shepherd felt as if he _shouldn't_ have been saved at that moment.

But he had. At the moment where he'd thrown away his oath, taken up arms in anger and cast aside the most important rule of all . . . .

Gunfire ricocheted off the airlock door as he fell back. The Shepherd raised his weapon, and with heart heavy, he sighted one of the advancing marines in the most vulnerable point of his armor - the neck seal.

_Do unto others . . . ._

He pulled the trigger, and as the man fell, hand rising to the blood erupting from his throat, the Shepherd took solace in the fact that it _did_ hurt to do this. It hadn't always.

The radio buzzed as he fired, and he took it in his off hand, bracing the rifle with his other and firing from the hip.

"Captain?" he asked.

_"Shepherd," _Mal replied. _"We got 'em." _Book whispered a quick breath of thanks to on high.

"Hurry back, its getting dicey here," the preacher reported, now that he knew he could _tell_ Mal. He grimaced as he scored another lethal hit on a faceplate. It was ironic that their armor forced him to kill these men instead of spare them.

_"What's happening? The others okay?" _Book hesitated, squeezing off another round.

"Kaylee is okay," he reported. "Inara . . . Inara's been hit."

* * *

Mal was running down the stairwell when Book's words hit him. He missed the next step and went tumbling down, only halted by Jayne's oversized bulk. The big mercenary caught the Captain as he fell, and Mal managed to straighten himself up after a second.

"Repeat that," he said, praying to whatever may have been listening that he had misheard the Shepherd.

_"Inara took a bullet," _Book clarified. _"Hit to the torso, between shoulder and the heart. She'll live, but you need to get the doctor back here _now_."_

"On our way," Mal said, cutting of the radio before he could let anything else slip out. A storm of emotions, the vast majority of which involved some variation of anger or fear, flew through him. The others looked down at him as he raised his rifle, stilled himself, and looked to Jayne.

"I'm taking the lead," he whispered, and pushed past the mercenary, his voice warning that he wouldn't be argued with. "Zoe, Jayne, keep the Doc covered."

No one chose to argue with him; instead, a flicker of anger and fear shot through very face of the procession. Even River, as out of it as she was, mumbled something in response and gripped Wash more tightly. Zoe slid back, standing next to Simon, and nodded to the doctor.

Grimly, the group continued down the stairwell, boots and shoes slamming into the deck as they hurried back home.

* * *

Elsewhere on the vessel, more boots were audible on the metal decking, though advancing with greater caution. A squad of Alliance marines were en route to the infirmary, responding to a call for reinforcements from their comrades. They instead found themselves stepping over the bodies of both Niska's men and their own troops. Their weapons were high, on alert, but they found themselves alone at this end of the vessel.

They entered the infirmary, and found the corpses of the two agents leading the operation. They wasted no time reporting the deaths of their commanders to the assault ship that had brought them here.

On the gunboat, Captain Durant's omnipresent scowl deepened. It had grown since his sensor officer reported an anomalous ship contact just before the assault had begun, and afterward reports were filtering in of other intruders on the vessel, right after Domali and Armant's men had reported encountering River Tam. Now his agents were dead, ceding command of the operation to the naval officer.

"Sir," called his sensor operator, who had been working on cleaning up the ship signal they'd received. The captain hurried over to the man, crouched over his terminal by the navigation team.

"What have you got for me?" he asked the ensign. The younger officer leaned back, showing the image on his console.

"I've finished untangling the comm jamming and thermal readings," he said. "You were right, sir. I've got a _Firefly_-class transport ship docked on the opposite side of the ship, on the secondary crew access hatch."

"Sir," called Lieutenant Ain, the officer in charge of the marine detachment led by Domali and Armant. "I've got a squad engaging defenders near that point. They've suffered losses but have almost taken the crew hatch."

The captain listened to the report, and nodded. He didn't need all the pieces laid out in front of him to make out this particular picture.

"Keep pressing that location, and get reinforcements there immediately," Durant ordered, frowning. "The agents are dead, and if that _is_ _Serenity_, they're probably bringing the target back to the ship as we speak. We _have_ to stop them."

* * *

The Alliance troops were divided into two fireteams of four men each; one was in the corridor approaching the crew hatch where _Serenity_ was docked, trying to take out the defending Shepherd, while the other four were covering their backs.

They were expecting backup when they heard the clatter of running on the deck behind them.

What they got was a barrage of bullets.

Malcolm Reynolds fell on them without mercy. He emptied his rifle's entire magazine with a flurry of rounds from the hip, gunning down one of the marines where he crouched. The rifle dropped, swinging by its sling from his shoulder as he whipped out his pistol, the rest of the marines bringing their weapons up.

A shot punctured one marine's faceplate, another was hit in the shoulder, and the last was about to fire when two armor-piercing rounds from Vera cut through him. Mal gunned down the wounded marine and leapt over the man's body, Jayne thundering behind him. Simon, Wash and his shaking human cargo, and finally Zoe chased them.

The four marines in the corridor whirled to face Mal and Jayne as both men crashed into their ranks. Arms and legs and armor and roars filled the passage. Mal's pistol blasted as he tackled two of the men. Jayne grabbed the rifle of another and shoved the marine into the wall, pressing Vera into his gut and firing. The gigantic rifle shook as the bullets punched through armor. Simon, chasing the pair, fired his submachinegun, winging the fourth marine as Mal's pistol went off again, the barrel wedging itself in the seams of the trooper's plate armor before he squeezed the trigger.

Gunfire slashed up the corridor, and the winged marine went down, shot by the guilt-ridden preacher at the other end of the passage. The last marine smacked his rifle's stock into Mal's face, which only served to enrage the captain further. He rose, slamming the man against the wall with a body check, and smashed the butt of his pistol into the marine's faceplate. Uninjured, the soldier kicked Mal in the gut, punching him off, and then Jayne shot past, the wicked knife he'd taken from Volsky stabbing into the marine's neck seal. Mal snapped up his pistol and fired again, into the faceplate of the already dying Alliance soldier, and the corpse slumped to the floor.

"Contact, rear!" Zoe was yelling as the heartbeat and rage flowed through the Captain, and he looked up. Mal holstered his pistol, waving for the others to hurry past. Wash leapt over the bodies, River in hand, and Simon followed as Mal reloaded his rifle. Then Jayne hurried on, not letting the Doc or River out of his sight. Zoe's longarm was blasting and clicking as she gave ground, and Mal raised his own when she came into the corridor.

"Get back to the ship," he said, his voice low but forceful, and they backed down the corridor, firing as they went. Bullets started deflecting off the walls toward them, Alliance troops catching up with the retreating group.

"Into the airlock!" he ordered, firing. A round cut along his shoulder, spinning him around, and he fired his weapon one-handed as his first mate ducked into the doorway behind them.

Mal was the last man through the airlock, Zoe slamming the door closed as bullets rang off the metal. He hurried into the cargo bay, looking around, running a hand through his hair.

"Where did-"

"Infirmary," Book reported, still clutching his weapon and looking darker and grimmer than a holy man should have. Mal didn't pause, breaking into a dead run for the back of the ship. He distantly heard the vessel shudder as Wash finally reached the cockpit and disengaged, and then they were loose, free, and blasting into the Black.

He let the adrenaline escape, and his fear finally rose up, unbidden and tight in his chest as he hurried to Inara.

* * *

"Sir!" the sensor officer called. "Thermal spike on the other side of the ship! That Firefly just took off!"

"After them!" Durant shouted. "Recall all marine units immediately! We are not letting that ship get away!"

The captain stared at the sensor displays as the Firefly flew away as fast as it could, its engine shining in the Black with the exhaust of a full burn. Several minutes passed as the Alliance troops fell back, disengaging from the remnants of Niska's forces, and Durant began pacing, waiting for the reports to come in from the squads still returning to the ship.

Finally, Ain looked up, nodding, and Durant snapped a hand toward his pilot. The man disengaged their link with Niska's vessel, and the light, speedy gunboat whirled around, directly on the tail of the fleeing _Firefly_. Its engines rumbled under his feet, and they were off in pursuit.

River Tam was not slipping from their grasp so easily.

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** Phew. That was fun. But wait, what's this? We're not out of the woods yet? D:

This chapter originally did include Durant's pursuit of Serenity, but I realized halfway through this chapter that it would take up too much space for what I wanted to do. So, the Big Damn Heroes are not quite safe _yet_ . . . .

Until next chapter . . . .


	11. Chapter Ten: Full Burn

_**Chapter Ten: Full Burn**_

He held her close to him, his shotgun bouncing against his side. She was light, lighter that he'd remembered from yesterday, when he'd helped carry her during her emotional breakdown.

God, was that _yesterday_? It felt like months ago.

"Its alright, honey," he was saying into her ears as they ran down the corridor. Gunfire and shouting raged up ahead, and seconds later he was finding himself stepping over the bodies Mal and Jayne had left in their wake.

She didn't reply, and that bit at Wash, even while running up the passage that led home. He plunged through the airlock a second after the doctor, and slowed down, his heart hammering and breath exploding out of his chest when his feet came to a halt inside the familiar, comforting sight of the cargo bay. A hand touched his shoulder, and he looked up into the eyes of his wife.

"Baby, we gotta go," Zoë said, and he nodded. Serenity had to get moving. The pilot looked around, and spotted Jayne coming into the bay.

"Here," Wash said holding River out toward the mercenary, and after a half-second of confusion the big man gathered the battered girl into his arms. If Wash's mind hadn't been rushed with a dozen necessities at that moment, he would have noticed the caution the merc showed as he hefted the little trembling wisp of black hair.

Instead, he gave his wife a quick squeeze on the shoulder and bolted up the stairs. His feet rang on the catwalk, and he practically leapt through the doorway that ran up to the cockpit. Wash plopped down into the seat, flicking the activation switches over his head, and began disengaging the airlock.

"Zoë, everyone aboard?" he asked, and her voice came back a couple seconds later.

"Everyone accounted for. Blow it."

"She _is_ getting blown, don't worry about that," Wash replied, and the ship shook as it broke free of Niska's vessel, before blasting off into the Black.

* * *

Jayne Cobb stumbled into the cargo bay as bullets screamed around him, his eyes fixed on Wash's back as the pilot carried the girl to safety. Relief flooded through the mercenary as they stepped back on familiar ground, and he knew that they - _both of them_ - were safe again.

"Here."

Then he found the pilot spinning toward him, and his arms became full of two girls instead of just one. River was limp in his arms, and he had to carefully set Vera down so he could support the other girl proper. Her eyes were closed, and for a moment Jayne was scared that she wasn't breathing, but he felt a bit of warm breath on his chest, and knew she had to have passed out on the way back.

"Jayne," he heard the Doc call, and the mercenary looked up, seeing Simon beside him, the doc's eyes fixed on his sister. "Come on, we need to get her to the infirmary." He grunted in agreement and jogged after the doctor, the girl's tangled, matted hair bouncing off his arms as he ran with her. Within a few seconds they had passed through the door at the back of the bay and down the steps beyond.

"Where's she go?" Jayne was saying as he carried River into the infirmary, Simon leading the way. They entered the antiseptic room, to find Kaylee standing over Inara, who was laying on the main bed. The mechanic was pressing a crimson-stained bandage onto the Companion's wound, barely-contained panic evident on her face.

"Put her on the second bed," Simon was saying, hurrying to Inara's side. He touched Kaylee's shoulder, and she looked up. Their eyes met, and he gave her a quick nod before taking her place, removing the bandage and taking a look at the Companion's wound.

"She's unconscious," Simon said, frowning as he checked the injury, which looked like a clean puncture. A second bandage was on Inara's back, where the round had exited.

"'Nara had me dope her," Kaylee was explaining as Jayne set River down. "Sounded like it hurt her somethin' bad . . . ."

"No surprise there," Simon replied. "This wound isn't that bad, but it needs to be sterilized." He looked up at Jayne, and was struck at how gently he was setting his sister onto the bed. Simonw anted to call him over to help him, but the mercenary's attention was focused on River. Simon saw movement at the doorway, and looke dup to see that Zoë was coming into the infirmary. She would make a solid second.

"Zoë, get me a tube of biofoam sterilizer and fresh bandages," he ordered, and she snapped to it as Simon continued probing the wound.

"Is she going to be alright?" Kaylee asked, and he looked up to the mechanic, the fear on her face breaking through his clinical doctor mindset, in a way he knew was dangerous.

"She'll live, but I need you to clear the room, okay? I need to work," he said as gently as he could. After a couple of seconds, Kaylee nodded and reluctantly stepped out of the room, while Zoë brought up the items he needed. He moved quickly, sealing up Inara's injury before she could suffer more blood loss, thanking whoever was watching that the bullet had gone cleanly through. Whatever it was, it was a small-caliber, high-velocity round, the kind he rarely saw used on Osiris or among this crew. Most of the gunshot wounds he dealt with were large-caliber pistol rounds, the kind that stayed in the victim.

The wound sealed easily enough, and Simon taped the cloth bandages to her wound easily enough. He had Zoë keep an eye on Inara, and stepped around the bed to where River lay. Jayne still hovered over her, uncertain, and something in his stance reminded him of the way Kaylee had been with Inara. The doctor gently pushed the big man back, and started looking over his sister's wounds.

_"Wu de tyen ah," _he whispered as he saw the marks on her, bright pink lines running across her stomach and chest, dark bruises scattered over her torso. These wounds . . . he'd seen the video from the wave Niska had sent, but this . . . .

He hesitated only an instant, before starting to check River's vitals, locking out all other emotion. If he didn't, if he regarded his sister as _his sister_ and not a patient, Simon knew he might break down.

There was movement behind him, and Simon spared an instant's glance, to find Jayne sitting uncomfortably on one of the counters, watching River with a nervous anxiety he'd never seen before. Simon just as quickly dismissed it; he had to see if River was seriously hurt by the trauma she'd suffered from and the adrenaline she'd taken. It took every ounce of his willpower and training to keep in his clinical mindset as he saw where she had been cut, beaten, and even electrocuted.

Worse still were the _other_ wounds he knew she'd suffered, wounds he couldn't treat with his training. He could barely imagine what she'd gone through, and what that had done to what fragile bits of sanity she still had left to herself. She had healed so much since he'd saved her, and now . . . .

As Simon Tam did his best to help River, he swore that if he ever got his hands on Adelei Niska, he would use every scrap of medical knowledge he possessed on that sadistic son of a bitch.

* * *

Mal hurried through the cargo bay, only slowing to drop his rifle on a crate. He had to get to her. To see her for himself.

_Everybody dies alone, _he'd once told her. That wasn't true - he wasn't going to _let_ it be true.

The common room outside the infirmary was empty, save for Kaylee, who was hovering outside the doorway to the infirmary, peering in through the window with her hands clasped together.

"Is she . . . ." Mal began, touching the mechanic's shoulder, and she looked up.

"Simon's got everything under control," Kaylee whispered, and as Mal stood beside her, he saw the doctor and Zoë sealing up Inara's wounds. The sight of bandages and blood, associated with her still form and flawless features - the image and the very _idea_ nearly broke him as he watched.

Then, the Doctor finished and broke away from the immediate, addressed crisis, focusing on his sister. The Captain hovered outside the room for several long minutes, watching the doctor check over River, and for the first time since he'd rescued her, Mal _saw_ the wounds she'd suffered. Sympathy pain arced through him as he remembered his own time in Niska's clutches.

There was movement inside the infirmary, against the wall near the window, and Mal saw Jayne's enormous form, still missing his shirt, and the bright red marks of the same kind of treatment he'd gone through standing out. But more striking was how he sat there, out of the way, but watching with . . . something hard to identify on that face of his. Whatever it was, though, it wasn't the first time Mal had seen it, but the mercenary made sure to be discreet about it.

Once he was certain that Simon had everything under control - and more importantly, Mal was certain that he _himself_ had everything under control - the Captain stepped inside the infirmary. Zoë was the first to notice him.

"Sir," she said with a nod. Simon looked up, and Jayne gave him a quick glance and nod as well.

"Captain," the doctor added as he finished checking River's injuries and vitals.

"Inara?" Mal asked, quick and blunt.

"Doc says she's fine," Zoë replied, to Mal's surprise.

"She got shot, she's not-" Mal started, but Simon cut in.

"It was a clean entry and exit wound," he explained, finishing up with checking River. "Small caliber. She was mostly in danger of bleeding out, but had the presence of mind to have Kaylee dope her when I got back." Mal nodded, the tension and guilt releasing from him in a single potent breath. He looked down at the still, unconscious Companion, and raised a hand as if to tough her, but then stopped. Instead, he crossed them, and looked at the other patient, the one who he'd seen hurt and breaking during Niska's wave.

"How's your sister?" Mal asked, looking over River, whose complexion was even more pallid than usual. The cuts on her body stood out brightly against the near-white of her skin.

"They . . . _hurt_ her," Simon whispered, and Mal caught the undercurrent of fury in his voice. "She's not in good shape, but she'll recover." His words and tone left the implication hanging clear in the air between them. She'd recover _physically._

Mal knew then and there that Niska had taken this far past personal. To hurt River like that, and to get at him . . . no one on his ship was safe from that bastard now. This was _war_.

_"Mal,"_ Wash's voice cut in over the intercom. The Captain looked up, and then back down to Inara, before stepping toward the speaker mounted on the wall.

"What's goi-" His question was cut off as the ship shook violently, glass whatsits clanging together. Simon and Zoë grabbed Inara, while Jayne leapt up from his spot on the counter and caught River before she could fall off the bed.

"What in the holy hell was that?" Mal demanded as the ship steadied itself.

_"We're getting shot at is what,"_ Wash's terse voice replied. _"Better get up here."_

"On my way," Mal hissed, cursing under his breath. He glanced back to the Doctor and Zoë, and his first mate gave him a nod of reassurance. With a single lingering glance to Inara's unconscious form, Mal tore himself away and hurried out into the common room. Book and Kaylee were lingering outside, and he grabbed them by the shoulders.

"Kaylee, get up to the engine room. We're catching fire, and I want to make sure we don't catch _on_ fire before this is over. Shepherd, I know you've got some smarts regarding that, you can help her out."

Both of them nodded, and Kaylee practically jumped at a chance to do something with the anxious, nervous energy she had built up. Book staretd to follow, but paused.

"Are they going to be okay?" the preacher asked, gesturing with his head to the infirmary. Mal hesitated.

"Doc's got Inara patched up well enough, but River . . . ." the Captain trailed off; he knew what she'd gone through. He'd suffered plenty in the war, and afterward as a prisoner of both the Alliance and Niska. But she was just a child . . . unprepared for this, and already having suffered enough as it was.

Book caught Mal's meaning, and nodded gravely, before running up the steps to follow Kaylee. After a second, Mal headed the opposite direction himself. He knew that the Shepherd also had an idea of what she'd gone through, and that hurt the preacher almost as much as it hurt Mal.

* * *

"Talk to me, Wash," Mal said, running up the steps onto the bridge. The ship shook again as another explosion went off nearby, the shockwaves of the missile rocking the Firefly.

"Hello, how are you?" wash said, his voice echoing with a wisp of sarcasm. "The weather is very pleasant, isn't it?"

"Partly cloudy with a chance of exploding death, I take it?" Mal replied, and Wash grunted.

"More or less," he said, shifting their angle and flipping some switches. "Definitely an Alliance ship, looks like the same gunboat that hit Niska's ship."

"Can we slip 'em?" Mal asked, but he knew the question was rhetorical.

"That's a neg, Captain," Wash said, shaking his head, his face grim. "They're just as fast as us, probably faster. They caught up with us after a full burn away from Niska's boat. We've got nothing to hide behind either, and they're _quite_ shooty. Don't think we'll get time to find someplace to hide."

"Got any ideas?" Mal asked, and Wash shrugged.

"Got no countermeasures," he said, shaking his head. "They've got a visual on us anyway. Anything I could do to foul their sensors wouldn't help." He paused as a light on his console lit up. "Hold on, looks like we're getting hailed."

"Guess who," Mal said, grimacing, and flipped a switch, stepping in front of the camera by the copilot's station.

_"Firefly_ Serenity,_"_ came a clipped, precise tone that Mal instinctively associated with the Alliance. _"This is Captain Gerard Durant of the Allied Planets."_

"I can see that," Mal replied, his voice steady and neutral. He managed a smile. "I'm not sure why you're shooting at us, we don't-"

_"Don't pretend I'm a backbirth, Captain Reynolds,"_ Durant snapped, scowling. _"I know who you are, and I know what you're carrying."_

"That the case?" Mal replied, dropping the smile. "Not sure why you'd be firing on us, all things considered."

_"I'm not playing here, Captain Reynolds,"_ Durant snarled, leaning closer to the camera. _"You're in possession of a particular set of fugitives, and we want them. Alive, if possible."_

"Well, Captain Durant, you keep shooting at us, that's not likely to happen," Mal replied. "Hard to get live prisoners off a ship been turned to glowing debris."

_"If_ possible, _I said,"_ Durant repeated. _"My orders are quite clear, and unlike my superiors, who you disposed of, I've got more leeway in what they allow. I would _like_ River Tam alive, but if forced to, I can kill her, and everyone on your ship at the same time."_

"Really, now," Mal said, keeping his face solid and impassive. He looked at the Alliance officer's face, searching for duplicity, but Durant seemed just as good at hiding his emotions and thoughts as Mal himself. "That changes the landscape a bit, don't it?"

_"You've got five minutes, Captain Reynolds,"_ Durant said. _"Hand River Tam and her brother over to me, and you and your crew can go. Don't, and I will blast your ship to pieces and call it a day."_ The image vanished, and Mal sat back for a second. Then, he stood and walked over to Wash.

"How's the armor on that gunboat?" Mal asked, and Wash shrugged.

"Standard Alliance patrol and assault ship," he replied, thinking. "Definitely good enough to fend off small arms. Nothing we've got is going to scratch it. If we'd kept that cannon from Haven . . . ."

"Ifs are spit out in the Black," Mal replied, scratching his chin. He remembered a similar situation where they had been pursued. "What about pulling something like we did at Sturges? Burn 'em?"

"That ain't a dinky little fighter, Mal," Wash said, shaking his head. "Its hull is at least rated for planetary reentry. Can't guarantee that a wash from the engines will do more than muss up its paint." Mal nodded, looking at the sensor feed.

"Bridge windows are rated against small arms too," he assumed, and Wash nodded. "They polarize when hit with plasma, though, right?"

"Any bright light," Wash confirmed. "What are you thinking?" Mal smiled, his expression tight and clever.

"I'm thinking we introduce these feds to our crazy buddy Ivan."

* * *

_"Zoë, Jayne!"_

Mal's voice cut into the infirmary, and both of them turned toward the speaker. Jayne hopped up of the counter and hit the console.

"Yeah?" he asked.

_"Arm up, get the suits prepped. Jayne, get Vera and dress her up."_

"Sir?" Zoe asked, echoed by Jayne an instant later.

_"We're goin' fed hunting, people."_

* * *

Kaylee and the Shepherd had finished checking over the engine, making sure it had suffered no damage, when Wash's voice cut in.

_"Hey, kids,"_ he called. _"Kaylee, you remember that thing we did on Triumph?"_

"The Crazy Ivan?" she answered over the intercom, and Wash nodded on his end, even though she couldn't see it.

_"The same. Only we're going to do something a wee bit different this time around . . . ."_

"Different sounds risky," Book remarked, and Wash laughed nervously.

_"You don't know the half of it, trust me."_

* * *

Several more minutes had passed, and they were drawing close to Captain Durant's deadline. By that point, Zoë, Jayne, and Mal had all assembled in the cargo bay, all carrying their favored longarms and clad in space suits.

"Sir," Zoë called as she crossed the room, helmet in hand.

"I know," Mal replied, finishing checking the seals on his suit and locking the helmet in place. His next words came filtered out of the suit's built-in speakers. "You're wanting to know if I'm sure this plan will work, and in my humble, personal opinion, I have no ruttin' idea."

"No sir, I wasn't going to say that," she replied, putting on her own helmet. "I was just going to say that this is one of the more unlikely-to-work plans you've ever come up with."

"That's something special, I suppose," he added, looking back toward the rear of the bay as Jayne came running in, helmet in one hand and a long case in the other.

"Jayne, you ready?" Mal asked, and the mercenary nodded, putting on his helmet.

"Loaded and armed, Cap'n," he replied through the speaker, and patted the case, which had a few open slots on one end. After that incident with Mal's wayward bride and ship-thief, he'd had this particular contraption custom-made.

Jayne Cobb couldn't name a tenth the parts on Serenity, nor was he much help when it came to plugging the holes he usually left in people, and astrophysics just plain hurt his head, but he knew a few sciences and had them down to an art. One of them was gunplay. Vera couldn't be fired in low-oxygen environments because the specific propellant gunpowder in the casing for his favorite weapon's bullets couldn't produce enough oxidant to fuel the chemical reaction sufficiently to propel the weapon's enormous rounds at any appreciable speed. It _could_ fire, but that the rounds would hit someone at such a slow velocity that they might as well be tossing cow patties instead. He also knew that most small-arms cartridges like Zoe and Mal's preferred rifles didn't need O2 to fire at full velocity - their propellants produced enough oxidant to fuel their shots, and they didn't need casing like the one Jayne had made for his Vera.

"Alright then," Mal said, walking toward the airlock. He slapped the button, conscious of what had happened the last time he'd opened this thing into open space, and he, Zoë, and Jayne stepped into the room beyond. As the inner door slid closed, Mal turned on his radio.

"Wash, open a channel."

"On it." A couple of seconds later he came back. "You're on."

"Captain Durant, this is Captain Reynolds," Mal said, his tone dark and quiet. "I've considered your offer."

_"That was punctual of you, Captain,"_ Durant replied over the suit's speakers, apparently unaware of where Mal was standing. _"I was a few seconds away from blasting you out of the Black."_

"Well, we wouldn't want that, would we?" Mal said. "I've spoken with my crew, and we've come to the conclusion that its not worth risking our ship and all our lives over. We'll turn River and Simon Tam over to you."

* * *

"Smart move, Captain," Durant said, grinning. What an idiot. This was the man who was supposed to have outwitted an Operative? He didn't honestly believe that they were going to let them go, did he? True, he might have suspected that the threat to destroy the ship was a bluff - River Tam was simply too important, and his orders had been explicit that she be taken alive - but that wouldn't have been enough to convince him to just surrender.

Durant frowned. Something wasn't right about this.

_"We'll slow down for docking,"_ Captain Reynolds continued. _"Not that it matters much, your ship can outrun ours anyway."_ Durant nodded.

"We'll dock momentarily," he replied, and then slashed a finger across his throat. The link cut off, and Durant looked back to Lieutenant Ain.

"Assemble your men," he ordered. "We'll board, override their systems, and play along with letting them go until we've got all our troops on their ship. Once we've got the fugitives, purge the vessel. We'll destroy it once we've got the prisoners on board."

"Aye-aye, Captain," Ain replied, and he hurried to the rear of the gunship and his surviving marines. Durant turned back to the display, and saw the Firefly-class freighter growing larger in the forward display, its bulbous rear engine glittering against the starry backdrop.

"They are slowing down, sir," called the pilot. "We will be in docking position in a couple of minutes."

"Good," Durant said with a nod. His unease grew. "Keep on your toes, though. Just in case."

* * *

Wash sat in the cockpit, fingers tensing over a set of switches. This was going to be tight and close. His eyes locked onto the sensor display, watching the Alliance ship as it got closer, gauging the distance.

The gunship was almost on top of them, and was just beginning to dip beneath Serenity's aft engine cluster, less than a ship-length away. If they were going to do this . . . .

"Kaylee, _now_!"

In the engine room, Shepherd Book threw a series of switches, and Kaylee yanked down hard on the activation lever for the engine. The spinning mechanism rumbled, then roared, and began to rotate faster. The individual components became brown and gray blurs, and light erupted along the core's main spar.

* * *

"Thermal spike from the aft end-"

"I've got plasma ejecting from the rear of-

"Evade!" Durant screamed as alarms sounded throughout the gunship. The Firefly's aft end transformed into a shining blaze of pure, raw white light, and a ribbon of superhot plasma burst from the vessel's engines and washed over the bow of his gunship.

One of the distinguishing features of the old Firefly design was the way it expended plasma when it engaged in a full burn. Though spectacular, it was a bit wasteful, and extremely dangerous to anything caught in its wake. In an atmosphere, a full burn could ignite the air and result in an explosion comparable to a tactical nuclear weapon. In vacuum, things were less dangerous, but anything caught in the ribbon of ejected plasma would be seared without reentry-capable hull plating.

The metal hull of Durant's gunship took the blazing matter easily enough, the outer hull scorching under the river of plasma, but it held up. The forward window was a slightly different story; the glassteel was solid enough and could fend off the heat, but the intense blast of plasma polarized the window, softening the transparent material.

"Scanners scrambled," called the sensor officer. "Light bounce and radar have all been burned off, proximity is still online, thermals scrambled, bringing backup visuals-"

"Where are they?" Durant shouted. "They're going full burn, get after them!"

"Aye-aye, sir," replied the pilot, bringing the gunship around. "Got them on proximity. Pursuing." Durant looked at the scrambled sensor display, cursing as the Firefly tried to escape. He should have expected some desperation ploy.

His rage boiled away, replaced by confusion. The Firefly was escaping, but his gunship was faster, and it took only a few moments to match its speed. They weren't changing course or even trying to evade.

"What are you planning?" Durant hissed as they closed with the insane criminals.

* * *

"They're right behind us, Mal," Wash reported.

_"Good," _Mal replied over the intercom. _"Everyone, get ready. This is going to be bumpy."_ Wash tapped a couple of buttons, and gripped the comm speaker tightly.

"Throwing the Ivan in three . . . two . . . _one_-"

The entire ship shook as Wash flipped a series of switches, and held on tight. Zoë, Mal, and Jayne braced themselves. In the infirmary, Simon had tied down both Inara and River, and in the engine room, Kaylee and Book held on to whatever they could. The entire vessel whipped around as Wash flipped over Serenity's starboard thruster, and then he cut thrust almost as quickly. A burst of counter-thrust from the port engine stabilized their spin, and Serenity pivoted in place one hundred and eighty degrees.

Wash found himself staring directly at the Alliance gunship, framed neatly in the center of the cockpit windows, the momentum of the burn carrying_ Serenity_ backwards along its original heading and facing its pursuers.

"Go, Mal!" Wash shouted. "You're clear!"

* * *

Mal slapped the internal airlock controls, and the outer door slid open into the void of space. The metal slid down, exposing the Alliance gunship, its hull and windows still glowing from the wash of heat from the engine burn.

"Lay it on!" he shouted across the radios of the three suited figures in the airlock.

He, Zoë, and Jayne raised their assorted small arms, which looked like toys compared with the Alliance ship enormous weapons, and opened fire.

Firing small arms like their rifles against an Alliance assault gunship was like tossing pebbles at a tank under most circumstances. Heavier weapons like the armor-piercing, explosive cannon shells from the gun they'd scavenged off Haven would have done more appreciable damage, but Serenity lacked anything like that nowadays. Under any other circumstances, this gambit would have been a futile gesture doomed to immediate failure.

But the plasma wash from a Firefly's engines at full burn was _rather_ effective at softening metal and glassteel, even plating rated for atmospheric reentry.

There was no sound in a vacuum, but Mal felt the recoil of his rifle as it fired in the void. He kept the weapon shouldered, and had braced himself against the wall. The airlock was filled with the flashes of his muzzle, brass casings flitting out the airlock and into the emptiness beyond. He kept the weapon's sights set firmly on the cockpit windows of the gunship, knowing that was the weakest part of the ship.

Beside him, Zoë was firing another automatic rifle, shorter than he longarm. She would have preferred the lever-action rifle, but its rate of fire was lackluster compared with the raw number of bullets their heavier weapons could put out - and she understood that they needed volume of fire more than anything. The weapon shook in her hands as she emptied the magazine into the enemy vessel.

On the other end of the bay, Jayne's Vera was releasing enormous muzzle flashes into the void, the mercenary having loaded his rifle with armor-piercing hot-loaded ammunition he carried for just such a situation. The boxy case jerked and shook with every burst, and of all of the group, he fired the slowest, knowing that when he ran out of ammunition, he wouldn't be able to reload without opening the oxygen case holding his rifle.

The gunship continued pursuing, as if unaware that it was being hammered by a storm of hot steel and tungsten, and Mal cursed as he reloaded. They didn't seem to be having any kind of effect on the ship. A louder, angrier curse sounded over the radio, and Mal looked over at Jayne, to see him staring down at the case containing his rifle as if he had been betrayed.

The mercenary then tore open the rifle, exposing Vera to the vacuum, and through his faceplate Mal saw his frustration and anger. The rifle was empty and useless.

"Sir," Zoë cut in, "We're not doing any damage."

"None we can see, at any rate," Mal replied, firing another drawn-out barrage.

"Time to break out the heavy ordnance," they heard Jayne snarl, and Mal looked over at the merc, to see he was pulling up a bandoleer of grenades.

"Jayne, you said that-"

"Grenade launcher's pneumatic, don't need oxygen," the merc replied, and loaded a shell. "Got some high-ex AP rounds, wanna see their piece." He shouldered vera, and the weapon jerked, a shell lancing out at the gunship. There was a puff of light along its cockpit, but no change.

"Keep firing," Mal ordered, and did as he said, until his rifle ran empty again. He started changing magazines when Jayne fired his second grenade. No difference, and the metal was starting to dim as the gunship's hull cooled. A moment later, one of the gun turrets started tracking toward them.

_"Ching-wah tsao duh liou mahng,_" Mal snarled, raising his weapon, Zoë emptying a third magazine into the hull of the fed ship to no effect.

This wasn't going as planned . . . .

* * *

The rumble of the engines and the thrum of the consoles was intermixed with the call and return of crewmen across the bridge as Durant demanded updates. Thus, he didn't notice the faint, dull _tink-tink-tink _against the windows his bridge for several long seconds. When the sound tickled his ears, the captain held up his hand, signaling the bridge to go silent.

"What's that?" he demanded, and the crew listened, not certain; they'd never heard that before, except-

"Sounds like impacts on the bridge windows," said the pilot. "But I don't-"

"Give me anything you have on _Serenity_!" Durant ordered, cutting the man off. The sensor officer peered over his displays, and then frowned.

"I've got some thermal, but the shape is _weird_," he reported. "Like the engine wash is being blocked by . . . " His voice shifted to puzzled confusion. "Sir, the ship has . . . turned around to face us?"

There was a deep thunk against the bridge window, and Durant's eyes widened.

"They're _shooting_ at us," he said, his voice incredulous. There was another deep thunk against the glass. "Shooting at us with _small arms_. Idiots! They'll never penetrate our hull or windows with-"

A third thunk rumbled from the window, and then the glassteel shattered inward. The rest of Durant's sentence was cut off as he and three other members of his bridge crew were sliced to ribbons, before the positive internal air pressure grabbed at every man in the cockpit, and dragged them out into the unforgiving Black.

* * *

_"Whoooooooo!" _Jayne shouted, pumping his fist in the air. _"Did you see that? Did you _gorram_ see that?"_

"I did, Jayne," Mal said, exhaling and letting a smile touch his face. It had worked. For once, the _gorram_ plan had _worked_. Outside, the Alliance ship was careening out of control, flying at an odd angle well away from theirs. The bridge itself was glowing with the flames of ruptured and destroyed machinery.

The Captain stepped over toward the airlock controls, and slapped the button to close the outer door, the tension melting off of him.

"Wash, set us a course for the loneliest patch of black you can find," he ordered as the door slid shut. The air hissed back in, and the trio stepped inside the cargo bay, doffing their helmets. Mal took a long, deep inhalation, the stale, recycled internal air the sweetest thing he'd tasted in a while. _Serenity's_ engines rumbled as Wash took them away as fast as he could.

Against all the insane odds, they'd survived another day in the Black. That was a victory out here.

_We win_.

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**You know what's annoying? I forget to add accent marks to Zoë's name all the time.

Coming up with exciting chase scenes like this is hard, especially when considering the scenario involved. Most of the time, Serenity escapes through maneuvering or use of terrain and the environment, but in this case, I realized that they couldn't do that, so I had to come up with a different way for them to escape and win. Like the series, I'm going to avoid getting heavily into the science and engineering of Firefly, because I kind of don't have a lot of knowledge about it myself. In other words, lol technobabble explanations :P

Vera was a special challenge for me; there's a common myth that guns can't fire in space due to a lack of oxygen to fuel the combustion process to propel the round. The fact is that all gunpowder contains sufficient oxidizer to fuel the combustion in a vacuum, but we have it straight from Jayne that Vera can't shoot in space, so, well, I made something up and handwaved it all away by saying Vera's rounds are too big or something. I may edit this chapter in the future to reflect a different breed of handwaving, but the fact is that guns _can_ fire in space, and the scriptwriters for "Our Mrs. Reynolds" didn't do the research.

A note I felt I needed to add about the last chapter: you may have noted the Hands didn't use their sonic killy-stick thingies when they fought River and Jayne in the infirmary. That was deliberate; they're not going to be using those when in proximity to River or Simon. I noticed they didn't use them in Those Left Behind when they boarded Serenity, and extrapolated from there.

Next chapter is the epilogue for the Unfinished Business "episode." There may be a delay between the next "episode" and the end of this one, unfortunately; I'm reaching the end of the semester, and priorities take precedence. That's part of why I updated early; I wanted to get this out of the way so I can get to work on real life stuff.

Until next chapter . . . .


	12. Business: Epilogue

**_Author's Note: _**"MY EYES" warning; there is RiverThink in this epilogue.

* * *

_**Unfinished Business: Epilogue**_

Perhaps it was the sight of her open eyes, dark and gleaming, or her sitting up on the bed, her poise as easy yet precise and elegant as ever, but _something_ stopped Mal dead in his tracks as he walked back into the infirmary.

"'Nara," he said, a bit surprised to see her up again so soon, with her being unconscious last he remembered. It had only taken about ten minutes to finish unsuiting and checking to make sure the ship wasn't badly damaged.

Mal was nearly knocked over as he stood there, someone bumping hard into his back. He looked behind himself to see a flustered Jayne backing away, having hit the Captain when he'd abruptly stopped in the doorway. After giving Jayne a confused glance, he stepped inside the room, a little closer to where Inara sat.

"You're awfully, um, awake," he added, and she smiled, belying the bandages wrapping her chest. Now that the doctor had addressed his sister, he'd been able to wrap her torso wounds more appropriately. At the moment, Simon was doting over River on the other end of the room.

"The doctor gave me a booster after you got finished saving our lives," she replied, and Mal managed an embarrassed smirk. He'd never taken well to compliments, and Inara was the last person he usually expected to drop an honest one on him.

"Well, it was just," Mal said, and glanced back at Jayne, who was hovering at the door, for who knew what reason - though Mal had an inkling. "Jayne did most of the work."

"Uh, yep, I did," the merc replied, looking toward them as he heard his name. He managed a grin, and slapped Mal on the shoulder. "Always end up doin' all of Mal's jobs for him, usually." Inara's smile faltered, taking on a slightly cynical edge, and she climbed up off the bed.

"Well, I assume that since _both_ of our wayward children are back on board, we won?" she said, glancing toward River. Her face fell a bit, and Mal understood why.

"Yeah, we won," he replied, his own smile fading. They still had to ask themselves the more important question: at what cost?

There was a moment of silence, tension hanging in the air between the Captain and the Companion, and then she murmured an excuse about something under her breath and floated past him. The room was silent, save for the thrumming of medical equipment, and Mal finally stepped around the bed. Jayne drifted further into the room, sitting down on the main medical bed as he did so, while Mal stopped next to Simon.

"How's River?" he asked. She was now fully clothed, a medical gown pulled over her upper body, and her eyes were still closed, her chest rising and falling steadily.

"She's asleep," Simon said, looking to the Captain. "Exhausted, I think." Behind Mal, unnoticed by either man, Jayne frowned, running a thumb over his chin.

"She hurt?" Mal asked. He'd already gotten the short version from Simon, but it had been cut off by the Alliance's rude interruption, and he wanted to know more.

"Physically, they . . . they did hurt her," he said, his voice distant. Pain echoed from his words. "But I've treated all the wounds they left on her, and given her some immune boosters and tissue regenerators to help with the . . . cutting and such." He stopped, eyes turning down to his sister, and sighed deeply.

"What about her head?" Jayne cut in. Mal and Simon glanced back at the mercenary, whose expression bore honest concern, buried under a clumsy facade of curiosity. "Ain't gonna go loopy again, will she?"

"I don't know," Simon replied, his voice tinged with the usual dryness he reserved for Jayne. "I know that what they did to her may have traumatized her, judging by how she reacted when we found her, but I don't know how badly its affected her mind. I won't, until she wakes up."

Mal nodded, pondering what this meant, and tried not to look at River's neck, where he saw the bright red tip of one of the hastily-treated cuts.

"Well, we got another patient who needs looking after, too," Mal added after a few seconds, and gestured to Jayne. The merc's eyes widened a bit in surprise, and Simon nodded. With a grunt, Jayne took off his shirt, and Mal winced. He'd seen the marks on the man's chest when he'd found him in the infirmary, but now that he saw them up close and personal, without the whole 'verse crashing down on his head, sympathy pains lanced through him.

That he'd still been standing, let alone fighting and able to bring down an Alliance gunship, was something close to a miracle.

The room was quiet for a few minutes, the only noise being _Serenity's_ engines, the beeping medical equipment, and Simon talking to Jayne as he examined the battered bruiser. Mal listened idly, but kept his eyes on River as she lay on the bed, still and peaceful.

"Well, you're in pretty good shape," Simon finished, after giving Jayne the same injections he'd given to River. "Just take it easy, don't stretch or strain anything."

"Yeah, yeah," Jayne said with a grunt, pulling his shirt back on. He glanced to River and got back to his feet. "I been cut up plenty o' times. Just keep an eye on that batty sister of yours, I didn't save her skinny _pi gu _just to have her goin' crazy on us 'gain." With that, he rumbled out of the infirmary, leaving Simon alone with Mal and the unconscious girl.

"Well, he's as grateful as ever, I suppose," the doctor said, putting away his medical gear. He paused, shaking his head. "I suppose _I_ should be grateful. I know he must have kept those men from the Academy from taking her."

"He did?" Mal said, looking up, and Simon nodded.

"His throat was marked with strangulation bruises, and he had bruised ribs consistent with being punched," Simon explained. "Some of those were also on River." He stopped for a moment, taking a breath at that thought, before continuing. "They're consistent with trauma associated with hand-to-hand combat, not what I'd recognize as deliberate, controlled pain. He was fighting them, and so was she."

"He'd killed one when we saved them," Mal mused, agreeing. "Didn't he do that on Ariel, too?" Simon nodded.

"More out of self-preservation, I suspect," he replied, finishing with putting away his tools. "I can't picture him trying to protect River, honestly."

"Maybe," Mal said, considering the way Jayne had been acting. He glanced back up to Simon. "Doc, you look like you need a rest."

"We all need a rest," he replied, dry as usual.

"Well, you go take one," Mal replied. "I'll keep an eye on your sister."

Simon hesitated, considering all that had happened, and nodded after a few seconds' consideration. He took out an injector and a vial, loaded it, and put it on the table by River.

"Pain medication," he said. "If she needs any." With a few more seconds devoted to watching River sleep, Simon turned and reluctantly walked out of the medical bay, leaving Mal to retain his vigil over the sleeping girl.

* * *

The Black stretched out beyond the forward window, open and inviting. Wash had settled back into his chair, watching it and the instruments with practiced ease as he let his mind drift. The roar of battle and the frantic piloting he'd gone through to get them out of that scrape played over in his mind, and he exhaled. He didn't want to admit how close they had come . . . .

A hand fell on his head, familiar fingers running through the tangle of blond hair on his head.

"Hey, hon," he said, turning in his seat to look at Zoë. She smiled back at him, with that expression she reserved only for her husband.

"That was some smooth sailing back there," she told him, sliding forward and settling into his lap.

"Wouldn't have mattered a whit without you," he replied. "I'm just glad we got away, and everyone's safe."

"Safe as we can get out here," she corrected, and he didn't see a reason to dissuade her. The divot on the wall behind them and the scar on his chest told him all he needed to know about how dangerous this line of work was . . . and how his wife and the family they'd put together on _Serenity_ made it all worthwhile.

Worthwhile enough to risk his life for, especially. It hadn't crossed his mind how dangerous trying to rescue River and Jayne would be, but he'd rushed headlong into it, alongside his wife and friends. Seeing the both of them hurting like that, especially the girl . . . .

Wash banished the dark thoughts and memories of the pain he'd gone through, and looked up at Zoë.

"You know, all that heroism makes a man hungry," he commented.

"Shepherd might be fixing something," Zoë added, and she stood up. Her hand dropped down before her husband, and he took it, letting her haul him up to his feet and lead him out of the cockpit.

* * *

He'd been maintaining his vigil for a while, and not being one to sit around, Mal had gotten up and started wandering around the infirmary. Though it was Simon's job to keep the medical supplies stocked, he found himself counting the important drugs, ones even an uninitiated plebe like himself would recognize, when he heard a rustle of fabric on the far side of the room. Mal hurried over to the bed, where he saw River stirring under the blanket. She murmured something, her eyes still closed, and as he stopped beside her, they slid open.

"Hey, Albatross," he said, giving her a reassuring smile. She tensed up a bit, and Mal knew it was because of her aversion toward this room in particular, but she calmed as her eyes focused on his face.

"Captain," she said, her eyes flicking around the room. "Empty."

"Everyone's about," he assured her, sitting down in the chair beside her. By now he'd developed a fair bit of skill at figuring out what she meant sometimes. Her eyes became unfocused for a couple of seconds, and he saw her relax.

"I can hear them," she whispered. "Kaylee and Simon and Inara and . . . ." Her eyes moved around the room a little more, before she whispered again.

"Didn't . . . ." she looked toward him. "Didn't think I would again." The smile that crept over her face was tiny but honest.

"Wasn't gonna leave you," he replied, and her eyes became distant again.

"Did whatever it took," she muttered, and he grimaced. She knew what he'd done in order to find her, but the expression on her face wasn't judging him. Only person on the boat who wasn't, it felt like. Her gaze shifted back toward Mal after a few seconds

"Didn't think you'd come for us," she added, her voice small and timid. "Didn't think you'd make it in time."

Mal remembered Jayne saying something similar when they'd rescued the pair, and the way she spoke it . . . as if it wasn't the first time she'd said those words.

"Well, you're a dummy," Mal replied, smiling, and her face shifted again, a faint bit of brightness appearing on her features.

"Tired," she added after a few seconds, her eyes drooping.

"It hurt any?" Mal asked, and she shook her head.

"Just tired," she repeated. Mal looked her over, and then glanced out the infirmary door.

"Well, near as I can figure it would be better you got out of here," he said, and carefully scooped River up into his arms. "Your own room might be more comfortable." She nodded as he hefted her, surprised at how light and thin she was. Was this fragile little girl the same one that had killed an army of Reavers?

"Strong," he heard her murmur as he carried the girl out of the infirmary and into the common area.

"Eh?"

"Strong, like Jayne."

"Reckon I'm not quite as big as that ox," Mal replied. She smiled as they walked down the corridor beyond, toward her room.

"Different strength," she clarified, her voice quiet and tired. "Dedicated. Kept the girl safe."

The Captain mulled over that as they reached her room, and he slid the door open with his leg.

"He did, didn't he?" Mal said, more to himself than to her. She didn't answer, and he looked down at her, to find she'd slid back into sleep while he'd been walking. Moving with care that he didn't know he had, Mal set the girl down on her bed and, with a lingering glance to her sleeping form, he closed the door.

Mal was halfway up the corridor before he realized his hands were shaking, and he stopped, swallowing the rage that was building up inside him.

One day, he promised, Niska was going to _pay_.

* * *

Mal came up to dinner about halfway through, and found the assembled crew both smaller than usual and bit more somber than usual. Inara was still not to be found, and he knew where River was, but the rest of the crew were sitting around, eating and talking. Zoë and Wash were right next to each other, their seats so close they seemed to be joined at the hip. Kaylee chose to hang close to Simon as well, but while she was talkative, he was still quiet, picking at his food absently and eating with clinical concern.

Book was the most talkative, telling the tail-end of what seemed to be a moralful anecdote on loyalty and friendship. Mal recognized the not-too-subtle way in which he was shoring up morale among the crew after such a harrowing experience for them all. To be honest, most of the crew was smiling, save for Simon; even the pall on his features wasn't putting Kaylee or Wash down.

Jayne, Mal noticed, was sitting at his spot at the far end of the table, notably alone; River, for some unfathomable reason, preferred sitting beside him at times. Without her taking up a spot by him, he seemed to stand out like a wart on a thumb.

"Hey, cap'n," the Kaylee said as Mal stepped into the room and sat down at his seat. Simon looked up as the Captain took his usual chair. "Shepherd was just finishing up a nice story, you missed it."

"Terrible shame to miss a good sermon," Mal replied with a smile at the preacher, who took it with his usual gracious good cheer. He caught the look on Simon's face, and nodded his way.

"Took River back to her room," he explained.

"She woke back up?" Simon asked, and the mood around the table perked up a notch. Even Jayne seemed concerned, though by Mal's observation, that wasn't terribly odd.

"Yeah, and she's fine, far as I can tell," he replied. "Didn't say she was in pain or nothin'. Bit tired, though, so I put her back where she'd be more comfortable." Simon seemed to relax a bit, and little ripples of relief flowed around the table from those gathered, particularly from Wash.

"Thank you," the doctor said, and Mal shrugged.

"Least I can do," Mal replied, taking up his chopsticks.

* * *

Toward the end of dinner, Simon excused himself and took the extra tray of food reserved for his sister. He gave Kaylee a quick peck on the top of her head and moved belowdecks.

"River?" he called, sliding the door to her room open and coming to a halt. She was sitting in her bed, dressed only in a slip of a nightie, and looking down at her hands and arms with dull, wet eyes. Her eyelids were puffy and red, and dried tears marked her cheeks. Simon stepped around her bed, putting the tray of food down and sitting beside River. his arms rose and enfolded her, hugging her close. He didn't need to say or do anything; this had become painfully familiar for him.

_"Mei-mei?" _he asked into her ears, quiet and close, after a couple of minutes. Sometime between when Mal had brought her down here and now, she must have . . . .

"Alive," she said after a couple of seconds. "Still alive, with the memory."

"Don't think about it," he tried, wishing he was better at psychology. Treatment like this was Inara's department, and he started wondering if he should ask her to help River cope with herself.

"Can't _not _think," she said, her fingers coiling around the blanket. "Waves and ocean currents, cold and pain and blood all seeping into it. I can't . . . can't block it _out_ anymore."

"You can, River," Simon said, mind racing as he tried to comfort her. "You're stronger than you think you are."

"But it doesn't matter," she said, sobbing. Her head dipped, burying into his neck. "It doesn't stop hurting, it _never_ stops hurting."

Words stopped coming out, and were replaced by uncontrolled crying and nonsense sounds. He held her close, muttering reassurances, and dwelling as best he could on their happiest moments together, praying the thoughts would soothe her. The pain she spoke of, the marks on her body, told a story he couldn't begin to imagine, and as Simon held his sister, he felt part of himself start to break too.

How could the universe be this unfair to them?

The crying started to abate after a few minutes, the breakdown passing, slowly replaced by the occasional sob and constant trembling.

"Going . . . back," her shuddering voice emerging again. "Backpedaling. Its all chaos again. Thought I was getting better, but the pain crowds in around me. Not rational, not quantifiable, just darkness . . . .

"Its all pain," she said, clutching the covers tightly. "Nothing but pain . . . ."

"Not anymore," Simon said, hugging River close. "I won't let them hurt you again. Never again."

"Can't protect me, Simon," she said, shaking. "Can't always take care of me."

"I _will_, River," he told her, his voice solid and strong. "We take care of each other. All of us."

"Each . . . other," she murmured. She sounded like a child. In so many ways, he reflected, she still _was_ one. "Family. Takes care of each other. All of us." The way she spoke, it seemed as if she didn't even understand the concept now, repeating it to herself to make sense of it all. She kept repeating it, her voice growing quiet and more stable, the shaking slowing to a barely perceptible tremor.

"That's right," he told her, and pulled back a bit, looking into her face. She was still sniffling, and her eyes were still wet, but River seemed to be getting back under control of herself. "We're all family here, now."

River nodded, and the trembling began to subside. He reached up, pulling back her hair from her face.

"Tired," she breathed, pulling the blanket around her. "Need to rest."

"Yes, you do," Simon said, smiling. "Doctor's orders."

River laid back, her movements slow and uncertain, and curled up in the bed beside Simon. He hesitated before putting another blanket up around her shoulders. She seemed so like when she'd revived the first time, in the cargo bay so long ago. He remembered how they'd stayed together the first few nights as she recovered, returning to reality from that long, unending nightmare. How she had been plagued by nightmares, bursting from sleep with uncontrolled sobs intermixed with violent nausea. How he'd kept her close, reminding her that he was there, and how she'd clung to him in the strange environment, surrounded by people she didn't know.

"Do you want me to stay with you?" he asked, and she shook her head. Her mouth quirked up a tiny bit.

"No monsters under the bed," she answered. "Kaylee's cold and alone now."

He nodded, and patted on the side of her head again. Was this her way of kicking him out, telling him he should be on his way, and she would be fine? After nearly a year of her disjointed nonsense, he still barely understood half of what she was talking about.

But her eyes, the look on her face, told him more than a thousand words.

"You need me, come get me," he told her, and she nodded again, before curling up tighter and closing her eyes. Simon lingered until he heard River's breathing shift to the regular inhalation of sleep, and he slowly stood. Her light turned out, he stepped outside and quietly slid the door shut, leaving her in what peace he could grant.

* * *

As Simon left, a shadow moved in the hallway, unnoticed. It paused by River's door, and a sigh sounded in the passage, before the figure stepped past.

What had happened to her, what they had done to that girl . . . that was why he had left. Why he sought solace in a higher power. He'd lost faith in men, in their plans to create worlds without sin. That was the Lord's domain, not theirs, and neither his nor theirs to force.

Shepherd Derrial Book walked toward his own quarters, heart heavy and mind deep in thought, belying the story-telling man he'd been at dinner. He hoped that his brief access to the Cortex a few days ago would help yield some answers. River deserved them . . . .

* * *

The others had slid off after dinner was taken care of. Zoë and Wash seemed eager to get back to their bunk; violence and near-death experiences had a way of getting them flustered. Simon had already run off to see to his sister, Book had wandered away after helping with the dishes, and Kaylee seemed dead tired even with all her smiles, heading off to her bunk. Both Mal and Jayne could see that half the exhaustion she was feeling was emotional, after such a harrowing day.

With Inara staying in her shuttle and River sleeping in her bunk, that left Jayne and Mal alone in the dining area, with the mercenary breaking out a bottle of whiskey. The two men were sharing a few fingers each in chipped shot glasses.

As Mal threw back his drink, he looked back at his hired muscle, who was staring into his glass with a distance and thoughtfulness that was rare for him. In the years they'd spent together, Mal knew Jayne as a man who contemplated little, favoring action and motion over consideration. The most common times he spent in thought were when he was planning his part in a job.

"That one was close, cap'n," he said after several long minutes of quiet.

"Agreed," Mal said with a nod. If he hadn't shown up when he did . . . .

"Might want to give Wash a commendation on that, too," Mal continued. "He broke us to of a pincher that might have taken us to long to get out of otherwise." Jayne nodded, for once not seeming sullen at the prospect of owing the little man anything.

"I knew Niska was bad news," Jayne continued. "Ever since we first saw him. Didn't prep me for what he might've done, though." Mal nodded, his own memories welling up.

"Wasn't just me," the merc said, his voice quiet. Mal took a sip, listening to Jayne continue. "Man's got no sense of what's decent at all. Wish I coulda got more'n a couple of his fingers. Shoulda just cut his throat, clean the 'verse up a bit."

"We all got regrets on that score," Mal replied. "He's not going to let this go."

"Gonna have to hurt him back," Jayne grumbled, anger cutting into his voice. "Gonna have to stop him before he can hurt us again, pay him _back_." A flash of fury entered the mercenary's eyes, and Mal's lips pressed together. He agreed.

Jayne's anger subsided a bit, and he looked down at his glass, before emptying it. As he reached out, taking the bottle, and poured another couple of fingers. Mal held his glass out, and Jayne obliged. Once they were full up again, he looked down at the liquid, his voice quiet and tight.

"They was _hurtin'_ her, Mal," he said, shaking his head. "Hurtin' a little girl, broke up in the head, too. And I knew Niska . . . he liked hurtin' _her_ more than he hurt me. And then, at the end, right 'fore we got out, they was gonna . . . ." He trailed off, and Mal watched in fascination as the hardened, vicious killer of a mercenary shuddered.

"They was gonna take her, Mal. In ways that weren't seemly," he hissed. "And I _wasn't_ . . . I wasn't gonna _let 'em_."

Silence filled the dining room, and Mal took another long, thoughtful sip of his whiskey. He hadn't known _that_.

"You know, Jayne," Mal said, speaking up for once. The mercenary looked up from his glass, and he met the Captain's eyes.

"Yeah?" he said, knowing a lead-in when it was spoken.

"When you were in the med room with the Doc and his sister, I saw something funny," he explained, tapping the counter, his words curious and thoughtful.

"What about it?" Jayne replied, his words quick and a hair defensive.

"There was this look," Mal said after a couple of heartbeats. "A look I only saw a few times before from you. Most clear recollection of it I have . . . is when Kaylee got shot."

Jayne was silent, and looked back down to his bottle. Those were bad memories.

"You tried to be quiet about it, not show it to anyone, but I saw you outside the infirmary, watching as the Doc patched Kaylee back up," Mal continued, and took a drink of his own. "You were . . . worried for her, Jayne."

The mercenary didn't answer, despite the clear expression on his face and in his eyes, that showed his discomfort at the truthsome nature of what they were saying.

"You remember after the heist on Ariel?" Mal continued. Jayne looked up, mouth opening a bit, but then closing.

"Yeah," he muttered.

"I had every reason to space you, right then and there," the Captain continued. "You know what held my hand?"

"I didn't want 'em to know," Jayne replied, firming his jaw. "You had me right there, cap'n. Had me dead to rights, doin' somethin' I knew was wrong. And I deserved it, I suppose. Was shameful o' me."

They stared at each other for a couple of seconds, and then Mal looked away.

"That ain't it, Jayne," he said. "Well, that ain't all of it. Part of its the cut you send home to your folks. Part of its the way you were hurtin' after seein' that boy take that shotgun blast for you. Part of its 'cause of the way you were lookin' at Kaylee while she was hurt." He paused.

"The way you were lookin' at River, while she was hurt and torn up, that's the same way you looked at Kaylee."

Silence hung in the dining room, and Mal stood up.

"Month ago, you were wanting to get rid of the girl, because she was a threat to all of us," Mal said, walking toward the crew hallway. "Now, I see you hovering over her, trying to keep her safe. That's why you're still here, Jayne."

With that, Mal disappeared down the corridor, leaving Jayne alone with the whiskey and his thoughts.

* * *

She felt his presence as he slid into the bed beside her, trying to be discreet as he climbed under the wool blanket. He lay down beside her, and she rolled over, wrapping an arm around his stomach.

"I didn't want to wake you," Simon said, his tone apologetic, to which Kaylee replied by hugging him tighter against him.

"Don't think I'm about to start sleepin' just yet," Kaylee replied. "Just glad you're okay." He shifted, moving around the face her, and a hand slid up, touching her nose.

"I'm glad you're safe, too," he admitted. She smiled, nuzzling closer to him.

"So close," she whispered into his chest. "Today was . . . ."

"Its over now," Simon said, pulling his love tight to him.

"Yeah," she replied. "I just . . . got so scared for you an' River'n 'Nara . . . ."

"But we all got through this," Simon reassured her.

"Did River go back to sleep?" Kaylee asked after a couple of seconds, and he nodded.

"I stayed with her until she went back to bed," he whispered. "I just . . . she's in pain, and I don't know if I can help her. Not after what she's been through."

"You've done so much already, hon," Kaylee said. "Just bein' there for her helps, you know?"

There was a long silence as they held each other, basking in each other's comforting presence, letting the stress and the fear roll off. The silence stretched on; they didn't need to speak anything else, and it stayed mercifully quiet until they both drifted off to sleep.

* * *

The room didn't smell of incense this time, so he was caught a bit off-guard when he stepped up to the door of the shuttle and found her bathing again. Mal had taken a roundabout route to her shuttle, ostensibly so Jayne wouldn't know where he went, but also so he could gather his thoughts, and now Mal found them dashed to bitty bits as he saw Inara's naked back. His mind quickly tried to fill in the rest while he turned away.

"Mal?" she asked, looking back over her shoulder, just like they had before the raid.

"Uh, hey," he said, putting his hands in his pockets so she couldn't see them opening and closing.

"So, are you still worried about me?" she asked, sliding a slip of fabric over her breasts and standing up.

"Slightly, yeah," Mal replied, looking back toward her. "You weren't at dinner, came to see if you were okay." The air between them grew heavier, and a pang of sympathy pain shot through Mal as he saw the bandaged wound on her chest. "Is that gonna . . . ."

"Simon assured me it wouldn't leave a scar," she said off-handed, smiling. The smile faltered a bit as she looked down to the bandages. "I've . . . never been shot before."

"A blessing, I'd say," Mal replied. She'd always avoided injury in all the adventures they'd had; even after the battle with the Reavers, she'd been barely bruised. Seeing her laid up like this . . . .

"Not with this company," she replied. "Though I suppose we've all earned our place. We've all got a gunshot story to tell now."

"Guess we do," he agreed. He remembered seeing Simon checking River's injuries, and the bullet hole that had been patched up in her flank.

"How is River?" she added, concern appearing on her face, and Mal sighed.

"Good as she can be, after all that's happened."

"And Jayne?" Mal was surprised at her question; Mal figured Inara didn't give much of a hump about Jayne if they weren't fighting.

"He'll live," he said, and sat down at one of the couches. "Though he's acting a bit . . . different, after what he went through."

"I'm not surprised," Inara replied sitting on the edge of her bed to face him. Her next words surprised Mal.

"Did you find Niska?"

"No," he replied, looking down at the carpet. "Jayne says he managed to make off with a couple of that _hun dan's _fingers, though. Guess that'll have to do, for now."

"For now?" she asked, and he nodded. He looked back up, meeting her eyes, and she understood that dangerous gleam in them. They stared at each other for several long seconds, and Inara's own expression hardened.

"Mal-"

"Don't want you gettin' involved in this, honestly," Mal said quickly. "This is personal, 'tween me an' Niska, and I-"

"Its between Niska and _this crew_," she replied, cutting him off. He stared back, his jaw dropping a tiny bit, for she had stood up, her voice firm and forceful.

"Inara, you-"

"I'm part of your crew," she said, and gestured to her weapons, sitting on her dresser. "I thought I'd made that clear by now. And if anyone attacks one person on this crew, they attack all of us. He targeted River and Jayne to hurt us. He targeted you and Wash just because he's a monster.

"You do not have to take this responsibility all on your own, Mal," she continued, stepping close to him. She crouched low, coming level to his face, and reached out to touch his shoulder. "I'm with you. I'll stay with you, and _Serenity_, and everyone else, no matter what."

Mal's eyes drifted down at her gentle fingers, resting by his neck, and he looked back up to her. His eyes lingered on the wound she'd suffered fighting for them, and he finally managed a slight smirk.

"Thank you," he said, and her eyes widened.

"What?" he asked, confused.

"I've never heard you say that," she replied, and he stood up quickly. She rose just as fast, but he slipped past her with an ease that would have matched the Companion's own.

"Don't be expectin' it too often, neither," he replied quickly, and looked back over his shoulder. Their eyes met again, and then he turned away, stepping out of her shuttle, leaving Inara alone once more.

* * *

Her eyes opened, and there was no pain.

She _remembered_ the pain, though, and it _arced_ through her, _**old and new**_. She curled up tight, shaking as she remembered, and couldn't hold back _the fear_. It clawed at her, biting and **tearing**, and River could only clutch at herself, whispering little prayers to make it all go away in between the sobs.

Time passed, and new sensations replaced the memories. _Serenity_ murmured in her ears, touching her skin, _shivering and shaking _and _**comforting**_ her as she lay beneath the blankets. Warm, dark amber light suffused the familiar scents and textures of her room.

Safety and _relief_ caressed her body, and she cut off the _water flowing from her sight_. She let the calmness replace her fears, and the shaking finally ended.

Something was missing. A presence.

She was _alone_, and being alone made a shiver run down her spine, matching the cold, the pain of the **blades** and the _**drills**_.

She threw off the blanket and grabbed the nearest clothes she could - a simple pink cotton dress, one of Kaylee's. She was up and moving, sliding open the door, bare feet padding on the carpet and metal outside.

_Sleepiness_. She caught _warmth_ and _peace_ throughout the ship, _serenity_ in _Serenity_. Her heart slowed, calm reasserting itself at the presence of home.

Darkness lingered outside the infirmary, and she walked along, fingers sliding over cool metal, warm air kissing her face and bare arms. She caught the rustle of pages, and saw him sitting on the couch, awake, unable to sleep. Wisps of alcohol hovered in the air around him.

He looked up as she appeared, and his expression lingered, but the _**darkness**_ in his mind cleared a bit. Warmth, colors he tried to hide his best, lurked within the darkness. He saw the dried tears, _collected salt_, resting on her cheeks.

"You okay?" he asked, the words honest, as he often tended to be, even when he _tried to not be. _

She nodded.

He managed a slight smile.

"Good."

She lingered, watching the pages of his book slowly turn as he stared back. Conflicting emotions _boiled_ in his mind. She peered through them, and saw what was going on underneath it all.

She moved closer, and then sat down beside him, wrapping her arms around his chest and embracing his presence. Her cheek touched the fabric of his shirt, hair dangling across her face. He tensed for a moment, and then relaxed.

"You know, you ain't too right," he muttered. She laughed against him.

"None of us are," she replied. He laughed, a single quick jerk of his chest.

Long silence, pages flipping and turning in his mind.

An arm folded around her, pulling her against him, warm and safe, protecting her from the cold. She closed her eyes and let _herself drift away_.

He'd brought her home.

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**Well, that brings an end to the Unfinished Business "episode". River and Jayne are safe, though what effect their ordeal will have on them in the future is in the air, and the same holds true for our Captain and the various crewmembers in the wake of his choices. Where do our crewmembers stand now with each other? How do River, Jayne, Inara, and Mal all relate to one another after all this has ended?

We'll see - probably when I've figured it all out for myself XD

Of important note: that last scene, with River and her huggles, is open to reader interpretation.

I would consider this one to be a sort of "season premiere" and as such its probably a fair chunk longer than most of the "episodes" I'll be writing. "Probably" is the key word here, because very little is really set in stone. I have several story ideas for the next parts of "Forward" in my head right now, and I'm trying to pick out which one will come up next. I'll be taking a break from "Forward" in general for a few weeks, as finals are coming up and this is that time of the year where everyone's schedule gets a bit hectic.

Besides, it might give me time to figure out where I'm going and write it all out. All I know is I've got at least one OC I'm fleshing out, a couple of recurring villains in the same ilk as Niska lurking in the wings, more Hands of Blue and Academy hijinks, and maybe, just _maybe_, the crew gets a chance to see how the Miranda broadwave is affecting life in the more populous areas of the 'Verse.

Until next chapter . . . .


	13. Condor: Prologue: Memory

Well, here we go again, kids. The next "episode" in this series. Enjoy!

* * *

_**Condor**_

* * *

_**Intro: Memory**_

* * *

Brush crunched underfoot as the figure zigzagged through the plants, ducking behind the towering gray forms of looming trees all around her. The air was filled with the distant rumble and buzz of organized conflict, the rattle of automatic weapons and roar of explosions rippling through the trees on all sides. Punctuating the blasts and gunfire were shouts, screams, and the rumble of engines as aircraft whipped above the treeline.

The air cracked behind the figure, and she dove for cover behind a large trunk. Chunks of bark splintered and flew as rounds impacted into the wood, and she dropped to her knees behind the tree. Her rifle rose as she pivoted, and a burst rattled off. Somewhere in the distance, a man cried out in agony and dropped to the mud. She fired off another couple of shots, and then ducked back behind cover, pressing a hand to her ear.

"Steel condor!" she shouted. "Repeat, steel condor!" More wood splintered and shattered as she spoke, and she spotted movement behind a tree to her south. Her rifle spun and fired, and another of the black and green-clad enemy troopers went down. The scent of burning wood tickled her nose, standing out for an instant in the chaos.

She considered rising and moving to more cover, but the bullets tearing into the wood were doing a fine job of dissuading her. Her last smoke grenade had been used up getting out of the last pincher she had been caught in, and now . . . .

"Is there anyone on this channel?" she hissed into the radio. "Seven Bravo is steel condor, repeat, steel condor!"

The enemy was moving up, pumping suppression fire into her. Someone had a machinegun and was hosing her position, rounds eating into the tree at a brutal pace. Soldiers advanced, flanking her position, firing as they moved. She shot back at the first one to expose himself, blasting two holes in his upper arm.

There was more movement, this time to her north. She turned, about to fire, wondering how they'd managed to sneak all the way around to her backside without being spotted, and then the forest lit up.

Brown and green-clad men stormed through the trees, the muzzles of their rifles blazing while light machineguns laid down withering suppressive fire. The troops were barely pausing to fire their weapons as they charged, yelling and shouting and filling the air with hot steel. The radio became alive with yells and whoops, and all other noise was drowned out by the roar of wild gunfire. Smaller trees shattered under the fury of the assault, and clouds of smoke filled the air as the storm crashed down on the enemy.

The pursuing troops came to a dead halt and immediately broke into a retreat. They fell back quickly but orderly, covering each other as they withdrew in the face of what could only be a massed infantry charge through the woods, something they didn't have the numbers to deal with.

As the enemy withdrew under the blaze of gunfire, the brown-coated men slowed and took up positions around the woman's battered tree. One of the soldiers, his rank pins identifying him a sergeant, slid into the moist soil beside her.

"Heard someone made a steel condor call," he said with a smile, and she nodded, a single tight grin of her own.

"Wasn't sure if you were coming, sir," Corporal Zoë Allyne replied, and he shrugged.

"Wasn't going to be that much of a surprise if they knew we were coming," Sergeant Malcolm Reynolds replied, laughing. "Shock and awe, and did you see the looks on those purple-bellies' faces? They thought half the Independent Army were coming down that hill!"

"They probably still are," Zoë replied, peering back down the slope. "And that means they may be calling up reinforcements."

"Did you find anything down there?" Mal asked, to which she nodded.

"If what I saw was right, they've got three battalion-sized infantry forces at the base of the hill, with at least one battery of artillery, two companies of rollers, and light armor of all colors." Mal grunted.

"Air support?" he asked, and she nodded.

"Gunships, and I saw some fueling pads for skiffs, too. They're gettin' ready to take the hill."

"Readiness?"

"We've got maybe six hours, tops, before they start advancing," she finished. Mal nodded and turned to their radio operator.

"Get that all back to the colonel, then we-"

"Seekers!" came a scream from down the line, and immediately Mal snapped a hand to his vest. A flare emerged and popped off, releasing an intense IR decoy, and he flung it down the hill. An instant later it was joined by a half-dozen more flares, and then there was a flurry of detonations down the hill as the missiles hit the decoys, followed by one much closer. The crash of collapsing trees sounded several seconds afterward.

Screams and blood filled the air, and Mal and Zoë rose, running down the staggered line of troop positions, toward a pair of trees that had been ripped apart at the base by a volley of shrapnel. Blood soaked the ragged tree trunks and stumps, and bits of cloth and ruined weapons lay all about, the men holding the position torn to ribbons by the close explosion. A pair of browncoats were still alive, one missing an arm and the other with both his legs beneath the knees shredded.

"Medic, medic!" Mal screamed as he pulled out his own medkit.

The medics arrived a minute later, too late for the man missing his legs. As they got to work, Mal heard gunfire down the defense line. A quick check of his radio showed that the Alliance troops were moving up following the seeker barrage, and in numbers far too great for his platoon to hold off.

"Pull back to the top of the hill," he ordered as one of the medics started hoisting the survivor onto his shoulders. "Pull back!"

They started making their way back up the wooded hill, and they made the climb without trouble save for a few seekers the Alliance fired after them. Mal detailed several men to carry flares ready to throw in such a case, and they kept the hunting missiles from taking anymore of the platoon. Within fifteen minutes they had passed through the defensive perimeter around the top of the wide hill and were moving inside the large town that sat atop the rise.

Mal ordered his platoon to rearm and tend to their wounds before dropping off the injured on a medical crawler, which rolled them off to the aid stations et up in the center of town. Palatial two-story buildings rose up all across the relatively well-off community, though many of the buildings were marked with bullet holes and a few artillery craters. Spinning wind power generators loomed up overhead, turning mildly in the swift breezes, and enormous glassteel domes filled with hydroponics facilities were scattered across the town.

That was what made this little valley on this piece of crap backwater planet so important. Thirteen percent of the food grown on this planet came from this one fertile little valley, which made it the prime place for the Browncoats to hold out. The Alliance didn't like the idea of razing important infrastructure that they'd need to support the planet once it had been taken, and that meant weeding out the Independent troops the old-fashioned way: with infantry and armor.

With the immediate crisis dealt with, Mal had stopped on the porch of one of the vacated houses to start fishing something edible from one of his food tins. Zoë sat beside him, cleaning her rifle, and they managed to catch a few minutes' worth of quiet time between them. Mal listened to the _whumph _of mortars blasting off from nearby firing pits and sporadic small arms fire. The occasional burst of anti-air fire and rumble of anti-armor cannons spread across the valley, and he could hear the humming of sensor arrays somewhere close.

They didn't say anything, taking the respite for what it was, and Mal and Zoë found a relative moment of peace watching the hellstorm begin to unfold below.

"Gonna get a whole lot hairier, reckon," Mal remarked, and Zoë nodded, sliding the barrel of her rifle back in place.

"Alliance knows we're directing artillery fire from this hill," she murmured. "Going to rush us, judging by what I saw. Infantry with armor cover, at least up until the edge of town. Then close-quarters."

"Then the fun begins," Mal said with a grin, relishing the prospect of getting back in. As he was speaking, a young corporal came running up, a bandage wrapped around his head an one arm marked by bloodstains from a hastily-patched shoulder wound.

"Sergeant!" he called as he approached. "The Colonel wants to see both of you, on the double!" Mal sighed, resealing his tin, and Zoë finished assembling her rifle.

"Can't ever get a real bit of peace around here," he muttered, and she shrugged, shouldering her weapon. They hurried through the streets, following the young corporal, who was nearly twenty years Mal's junior. They passed a platoon of damaged tanks being worked over by a team of engineers, and a mortar emplacement that shook every few seconds as the firing team laid down shots directed by the spotters atop the hydroponics domes. The stink of engine oil, lubricants, and hot smoke filled the air as they hurried through the streets.

There was a large house in the center of village, what passed for a town hall in this little burg, and was marked by an assortment of glimmering lights and other decorated frippery that indicated it was being used in a military fashion - and therefore making it a bright, glowing sign that shouted "Command center, please bomb me!" Mal and Zoë bypassed the bright, shining decoy, moved through a few small one-story houses, and then passed into what had once been a hardware store.

The shelves had been cleared away, and instead a number of folding tables had been set up, with various computers and comms equipment scattered about. Independent soldiers bustled around the command center as a knot of higher-ranking officers gathered around a large paper map set up on the wall. Mal and Zoë cut across the center, passing soldiers speaking in muted tones into their radios as they relayed orders, and waited near the group of officers. After a few moments, the highest-ranking man present, a Colonel, finished and dismissed his men, before turning toward the recon troops.

"Sergeant, Corporal," Colonel Lee Obrin said with a nod. He frowned, the beginnings of a thick black mustache shifting as he did so. "I heard you have news for me."

"We do, sir," Mal replied with a nod of his own, and gestured to Zoë. "Corporal?"

"Sir," she said, stepping past Mal and toward the map. She looked over it for a second, and took out some pins.

"Alliance troops assembling at these points in Grid Two Nine," she explained, setting the pins on the map, highlighting points near the base of the hill. "Just out of range of most of our light mortars."

"Size, composition, readiness?" Obrin asked, crossing his arms, his thick Titan Colony accent cutting through the background hum.

"Three battalions infantry, two companies of armor and one of artillery," Zoë continued, putting more pins on the map to indicate their relative positions. "Skiff pads here and here, gunship pads here. I estimate five and half hours before they begin advancing up the hill."

Colonel Obrin considered her report, looked over the positioning of the Alliance troops, and nodded, more to himself than to anyone else.

"Well, that settles it," he said with a sigh. He nodded toward the map, and pointed at the opposite side of the hill. "We've got a second Alliance force approaching from the opposite side. Estimate two battalion sized elements, with some armor and other vehicles."

"How's our reinforcements?" Mal asked, cursing inwardly at the news.

"Alliance units cut off our relief column while you were out reconnoitering," Obrin explained, tapping his arms with his crossed hands. "Both groups damn near wiped each other out. Command's mobilizing the Forty-First to back us up, but we'll be sipping tea with the baldricks by the time they get here. Or with the Alliance, which might be worse. Estimate a week, two, before they get here."

"Well, we're only outnumbered ten to one," Mal added with a shrug. "No worse than our usual odds." Obrin glanced back toward the Sergeant, and managed a grunt.

"With the sorry sack of muppets I've got to work with, it'll be more like twenty to one," he replied, shaking his head. A ghost of a smile appeared underneath the mustache. "But at least I've got a few competent people I can trust." He gestured toward the map.

"Sergeant, take Second and Third Platoons from your company and set up here, at the sewage pipelines on the southern approach. Take Lieutenant Summers' heavy weapons boys with you, and his anti-tank gear. They'll be moving armor up this slope, and you should have adequate cover to pick them off."

"Both platoons?" Mal asked, and Obrin nodded.

"Lieutenant Summers took a seeker to the sternum an hour ago, and Sergeant Falken's head went missing - we think a sniper took off with it," he replied. "Congratulations, Sergeant, you're the ranking officer in your company."

"Thanks, uh, sir," Mal replied, eyes widening with the sudden and unpleasant responsibility saddled on his shoulders. Obrin reached over and grabbed Mal's shoulder.

"Reynolds, believe me," he said, his voice dead serious. "Even if you were a private, I'd give you this job. Kill that armor. I know you can handle it; you've got the makings of a good commander in you, and the men follow you without question."

He gestured out the door of the command center.

"Get going, Sergeant. Next time I see you, I want good news!"

* * *

_**Seven Years Later**_

* * *

He settled back into the chair, eyes flicking over the light paper before him. Text flowed across the leaf of synthetic, displaying figures and numbers and data he was all too familiar with. Supplies, manpower, equipment, transit times, transit routes, expected losses, waste, projected income versus projected costs . . . .

Logistics.

He hated logistics, but it came with who he was. His eyes flicked across the room, to the display case set on the table. His one true indulgence in his life of constant movement, a throwback to the memories of times when he still fought on the front and didn't have to worry with the necessities of command, which, more often than not, dealt with getting the right equipment to the right people. Being an officer meant being a manager, not a soldier, and he _hated_ being a manager.

So, he sat there, looking over information he hated, holding the light paper in one hand and idly thumbing the thick black handlebar mustache that spread from his lips to his cheeks, and read the data, analyzing and quantifying and organizing.

There was a light knock on the door into his office, and he looked up. One of his men, a trusted lieutenant who'd served with him through the war and all the years afterward, was standing in the doorway.

"Excuse me, sir," he said, waiting. The man behind the desk nodded and gestured for him to step inside.

"What do you have for me?" he asked as the younger man walked inside.

"Intel report," came the reply, and he set the case he was carrying on the desk. The older man reached across and took it, flipping it open. He took out the report, his eyes flicking over the information. After a few minutes, he set it down and looked up at his subordinate.

"Reliable?" he asked, his words filled with barely-contained energy, and the other man nodded.

"Direct from our man inside the group they're meeting," he replied. The commander rubbed a hand over his face and through his handlebar mustache.

"Make contact," he ordered after a few moments' consideration. His words came out quick and urgent. "I want to arrange a meet, while they're still here. Go through our man inside, if you need to."

"Yes sir," the subordinate replied, and turned, cutting out of the office as fast as he could to carry out the orders. He hadn't seen his commander this interested and excited in a long time.

Back in the office, the commander looked over the intelligence report, and a smile spread across his features.

"Been a long time, Captain," he mused. "Wonder if you're still the man I knew, or if you ever filled out those leader's shoes."

Colonel Lee Obrin stood and walked across the room, toward the display case showing off his old weapons. He peered over them for a while, and the wistful smile grew.

"You're the perfect man for this job," he said to the emptiness, and was convinced he was right. If only _he_ could be convinced . . . .

Captain Malcolm Reynolds _was_ the perfect man, and had the perfect cargo, to set the entire system on fire, topple the Alliance, and end the war the Independents still fought.

* * *

-

Well, time for another little adventure in the 'Verse. I'm trying to write these "episodes" as if they were actual episodes, complete with an intro sequence before the metaphorical credit/title sequence. I hope I did it right.

"Condor" will be focusing on Mal and Zoe, but though the intro doesn't show it, a big chunk of it will be about Book (some of the foreshadowing in "Unfinished Business" will be played out here). River is also going to play a big role in it as well, and I've got plans for the rest of our crew. There's a few members of the recurring supporting cast also going to pop up in this story. I do have a general idea of how the plot of the entire series is going to run, and there will be clues and hints and foreshadowing in this story regarding future episodes.

Core themes for this episode are going to be loyalty and trust, as well as memories of the past - along with a hefty bit of standard issue violence. There's also going to be some exploration into the effects of Miranda.

Note that while this story does have some parallels with _Better Days_, it won't involve the Dust Devils, at least not directly. However, I can say with some certainty that a certain sword-wielding preacher may get to show off his skills . . . .

Until next chapter . . . .


	14. Chapter One: Nighttime

_**Chapter One: Nighttime**_

Stillness hung in the air, light and airy, masked with the scents of a vessel with recycled air gently wafting through atmospheric processors. There was a faint touch of warm staleness, a hint of musky sweat that the scrubbers never really cleared out of the air. It tingled and flowed, starting from the bridge and drifting backwards, accompanied by the near muted thrum of electricity running throughout the ship.

The crew corridor was quiet, lit by guiding lamps lining the walls and the string of little decorative Christmas bulbs hanging over one particular bunk hatch. The recycled gust of air pushed past, not interfering with the slumbering crewmembers in their respective beds, passing through the ship's night cycle.

It wasn't until the air drifted through the dining room that it touched a distant, giggling voice, and whispered words intermixed with quiet, hushed laughter. They were barely audible over the thrum of power running through the vessel's core and conduits. The gust continued back, winding around the table and up the service corridor leading toward the engine room. The muted rumble of the working core became louder, cutting under the voices of the two people resting in the same chamber as the ship's heart.

"So, fourteen?" he asked, laying back in the hammock she'd strung up in the little alcove on the right-hand side of the core. She nodded, her brown hair brushing against his face, and the motion sent the hammock into a tiny swing back and forth. She was half on top of him, one of his arms threading around her lower back.

"Yep. And I'm telling you," Kaylee said, and worked one of her arms from behind his neck. She held up her hands in front of Simon's face and spread them apart, and his eyes widened, before they flicked down to his trousers.

"Fourteen," Simon repeated, frowning as he considered the implications, and Kaylee giggled, patting him on the shoulder and curling a little bit closer to his chest. They were stripped down to their pajamas, which for her meant some light pants and shirt and for him meant a pair of sleeping trousers.

"Well, it might have been, ah, _upgraded_ compared with some models," she added with a smile, "but ain't no doubt he didn't have any inklin' of how to use all the parts he had. Not like _some_ fellas I know." He smiled back, a bit mollified.

"I just," Simon said, thinking. "I mean, I suppose its possible, depending on development and nutrition, and genetics, but I'm still amazed at . . . _fourteen_?"

"Yep," she said, fingers drumming on his chest. "Every jot, straight as an arrow. His folks said that, and I'm certain they wasn't lyin'."

"So, any more after that?" he asked, laying back and looking up at the ceiling. His eyes drifted over the access panels directly overhead, but he didn't see any movement in them. Not that he was terribly worried; this wasn't as compromising a position as it had been the last time his sister had gone on a duct-crawling adventure.

"A few, here and there," she replied. "None of 'em got too far past the first date, though. 'cept for Bester."

"Who?"

"Oh, I never told you how I got on the ship?" Kaylee asked, frowning, and Simon shook his head. "Cap'n never spoke of it? Was 'specting him to say something or other eventually about it, seeing how annoyed he gets when we make out in full view."

"Nope, he hasn't told me anything about it," Simon replied, turning his face to look at hers. They might as well have not been wearing any clothes, considering how their body heat flowed between the pair.

"Well, I was sittin' around the port back home, an' Dad, well, he wasn't having much to do, seeing how most ships that get out that far got a decent mechanic of their own. Kinda have to, sailin' about on the border moons, not enough folks out there to rely on to fix your ships. I was watching the sky, seein' the ships coming in an' goin', and I saw this absolutely beautiful one come down out of the sky." She paused, smiling, and looked up at the ceiling. "It was like a big piece of art, just flitting through the sky, like a . . . a metal hummingbird."

"Let me guess," Simon said. "That was _Serenity_."

"Oh, hell no!" Kaylee said with a laugh. "_Serenity_ looked like a ball of tinfoil with an engine strapped to it, the way Cap'n's old mechanic ran it. This one was a new Yavell Tee-Four-Niner, all double extenders and triple-charged grav thrust. But after it passed, I saw _Serenity_ comin' in, and it was just a big pile of junk. Wash knew how to fly her straight, though . . . ."

* * *

It was still in the middle of the night cycle, judging by the light - or lack thereof - that greeted him as he clambered up the ladder out of his bunk.

Sleep was something that Malcolm Reynolds had no trouble with and at the same time was always struggling against. On the one hand, serving in the Unification War had taught him how to grab a nap whenever possible, even in the most difficult of circumstances. One time, he'd slept through an artillery barrage, after twenty-seven straight hours of combat.

On the other hand, he'd seen way too much in his time to ever get a really comfortable sleep. Between the horrors he'd experienced in the war, the friends he'd lost, and what he'd encountered out in the Black . . . .

Memories ran through his mind as he walked up the crew corridor - and he found that almost all of them were dark ones he'd rather not remember. Serenity Valley welled up before him, mounds of corpses riddled with bullets as he stacked friends and comrades up into the only cover he could find. The tortured faces and mauled remnants of people he'd found in the wake of Reaver attacks drifted past him, and there was the man they'd broken and left to linger on with the memory, looming up with his face shredded by his own hands. He saw flashes of the woman that had reported the Pax, just as she was assaulted and torn apart by the first Reavers on Miranda, screaming and begging for mercy.

He stepped onto the bridge, and memories of the faces of his crew paraded past. There were some smiles, some laughter, but they were quickly replaced by expressions of disbelief and horror, and so much of it was directed at _him_. As he walked toward the pilot's chair and sat down in it, the knives of their eyes twisted at his heart, the _betrayal_ he'd embodied as he'd stood on Haven, gunned a man down in cold blood, and showed his true self.

"Sad," came a breeze in the quiet, and Mal looked away from the Black, to see a wisp of pale white flesh and black hair sitting in the co-pilot's chair. He was so distracted and she so silent that he hadn't even registered her presence.

"'bout what?" he asked, and River kept her eyes locked on the window before her. Her arms were wrapped around her knees, pulled up against her chest. Dark, unkempt hair tumbled down into her face, but it didn't seem to bother her.

"That kind of cutting," she replied. "Same sort, the kind that lingers because you keep it inside, grating on the soul."

Mal listened to her nonsense, frowning and trying to interpret her words.

"Got a lot of history," Mal replied after a while, divining her meaning and references to his dark thoughts. "Seen too much."

They both had. Probably why they were both on the bridge like this.

"Can't sleep," she murmured, and he nodded. She was talking about the both of them, he supposed.

"See the faces sometimes," he replied. "Some dead, some still livin'." He glanced over to her, and in the dim light reflected off the consoles, he saw a pale white line poking out the top of her cotton dress, running up toward her neck. The cut mark sent sympathy pains through his chest. She whispered something under her breath, pulling her legs more tightly to her chest.

"It still hurts," she spoke out loud. Echoes of pain sounded in her voice. "Not tactile, but the memory remains. Their memories, their sickness." Mal turned toward her, and he saw River close her eyes. She shook for a second, before reopening them and looking up toward the Captain.

"_Serenity_ makes it fade away," she said. After a few seconds, she smiled, just a tiny touch of upturned lips. "It sings a song, and I hear the beach and the rumble. I hear serenity."

"You gonna be alright?" he asked, standing up and walking across the bridge toward her. As he got closer, Mal noticed that the copilot's station was locked down, save for running lights. Had she shut it off on her own?

"Its not clear, murky and dark," she replied, looking off into the Black. "Muddy waters clouding the streams and making swimming hard." She paused, fingers tapping her legs, and lowered her head into her knees.

"Can't filter out the silt and mud," she breathed, her voice muffled. She shook a little, as if a mild chill was in the air. "She can't see what's real and what's not all the time. Thrown back to that place sometimes, when she doesn't want to be there, and she . . . she can't tell if what's _truthful_."

The pain in her voice cut deep, and Mal found his hand dropping down to his navigator's back. Her squeezed her bare shoulder, and stood beside her as she shook. They waited there for a while, and Mal found himself looking back out at the stars and the vacuum outside the hull. The shivering subsided slowly.

"Dangerous," she said, several minutes later. He glanced back down to her, hearing the distance in her voice, a tone he knew too well, from when she'd been almost taken by that sadistic bounty hunter. "She's dangerous, unstable. More unstable after they broke her again. Doesn't _belong_ . . . not with normal folk."

"Don't say that," Mal replied, and he put his other hand on her opposite shoulder to steady the girl. "You belong on this ship. You belong on my crew. Said it yourself, this is home, right?"

She went silent for a long while, and after what felt like an eternity, her head rose. Mal saw her reflection in the window, and could see tinges of redness around her eyes. One of her hands rose up and wiped her face off, and she sniffled.

"When?"

"Huh?" he asked, confused by the odd question.

"When did she join the crew?"

Mal pondered that for a while, and what she meant by it. He didn't ask her for clarification, as he'd come to think that her odd, ambiguous sorts of questions were sometimes intended to be defined by the one she was asking them to. Probably a load of steaming _go se_, but made sense.

"I'd figure you'd know by now, bein' that sort of mind and all," he replied. She shook her head.

"Sprouted like seeds," she said, frowning. "One day, she was part of the crew, even without doing any work and making so much trouble. Doesn't understand when it happened, when the Captain chose to make her family."

He considered that for a while, and shrugged.

"Not terribly certain on that score my own self," he answered, truthful as he could. She seemed to mull over that for a while, and nodded. Then, with surprising ease, she slid forward out of his hands, and rose to her feet. River turned to face him, scratching the side of one of her arms. It made her seem just a tiny bit _normal_.

"Not . . . sure of herself today," she said. "Not sure what's lies and truth. Chaos, storms and hurricanes, murky waters." She paused, looked away, and seemed to visibly steady herself, and looked back toward him, her brown eyes pleading, and an echo of fear in her voice.

"Captain . . . don't let me be _dangerous_," she whispered.

Mal stared back, and he understood all too well what she meant. He could see the fear underneath the girl's face, and he understood why she was scared.

"I won't let you," he replied, smiling to show her he meant it, and she nodded, a ghost of a smile appearing on her face. Mal promised himself that he wouldn't betray that bit of honest trust.

He'd keep them all safe from her, especially River from herself.

* * *

_"Is this what life is, out here?"_

_"Sometimes."_

_"I've been out of the abbey two days. I've beaten a lawman senseless. Fallen in with criminals. I've watched the Captain shoot the man I swore to protect . . . and I'm not even sure if I think he was wrong."_

_"Shepherd-"_

_"I believe I just . . . ." It was so absurd he managed a laugh, amidst it all. "I think I'm on the wrong ship."_

_"Maybe," she answered, rising. He looked up at her, so graceful and knowing, an understanding in her eyes that belied her apparent years._

_"Or maybe you're exactly where you ought to be."_

The fleeting memory hung in the back of his mind, brought up in the depths of sleep, and now it lingered as he washed his face and hair. As the Shepherd ran the water, he reflected on the differences between now and then.

How right Inara had been, he mused, thinking over all he'd gone through while traveling with this particular crew. Those first few days had been a shock, having spent so much time in the meditative quiet and peace of the abbey, and then thrusting himself back out into the real world . . . but he supposed that was what he was wanting, really. Sure, he wasn't doing missionary work on a large scale, but there wasn't any place that felt more _right _for him to be than on _Serenity_. Even if it had cost him . . . .

He started paging through his Bible, consulting the Word, and reflected on what he'd done the last few months. It had taken less than a year's travel out in these savage lands to force him to break his own promise and the years of pious nonviolence he had chosen, and while Book wanted to justify his actions, he understood that he'd taken life while striking in anger. He estimated he'd killed at least a dozen men when he'd shot down the Alliance ship on Haven, and five Alliance marines on Niska's vessel just a few weeks ago - and clearly remembered every single one of those men he'd had no choice but to shoot.

Their faces paraded before him, joining a very long line of similar ones, and he closed his eyes. He focused on a different set of faces, family and friends long past, his brothers in the different abbeys he'd traveled to, and most of all on the other eight people on this ship. His tiny, wayward flock, the smallest he'd ever had to care for, and yet the most important one of all.

As long as he stayed faithful to them, he supposed, he was still true to himself.

An hour after he awoke, Book made his way upstairs to the kitchen, the morning cycle already halfway past. Though they were nearly to their destination, they were still in the Black, which meant that sleeping and eating cycles were much looser than they would be planetside. Point in case, Book found himself walking into the dining room to find a few places had already been set - and cleared - on the table, and the hulking form of Jayne Cobb was looming in the kitchen over the stove.

"Good morning," Book called to the mercenary, who looked up, affording the Shepherd a nod.

"Mornin', preacher," he replied, stirring something in the pot. There were a few vegetables on a cutting board next to the big man, and Book had to stop himself as he saw the mercenary pick up a tomato and start slicing it up.

"Are you cooking breakfast?" the preacher asked, and Jayne looked up, frowned.

"Nah," he said. "Fixing some of this spaga . . . spegut . . . this funny word in this book Kaylee got."

"Spaghetti?" Book asked, stepping around the kitchen counter to look at the little cookbook Jayne had propped up beside him.

"Yeah, that's what it sounded like," Jayne replied, jaw twisting as he read through the recipe inside.

"I was unaware you were a chef," Book remarked, and Jayne shrugged.

"Momma taught me a couple of things about fixin' proper food, 'fore I left home," he replied. "Two . . . diced . . . tomootos." As he spoke, Jayne started chopping up the tomato.

"Anyway," he continued, "Someone 'round here's had to make the food 'fore you came aboard. Kaylee's got some schoolin' from her folks about fixin' a good meal, but Mal and Zoë fixin' dinner is like putting the Doc in a boxin' ring, know what I mean?"

"Perfectly," Book replied, grabbing some unions. "Mind some help?"

"Nope," Jayne replied with a shrug. "Help yourself. Hate cuttin' unions anyway. Ain't manful."

The two of them worked on the recipe for a while, exchanging small talk about goings-on about the ship, and as they were finishing with the ingredients, Jayne glanced up, catching sight of Inara as she slid into the room. He gave her a nod, and she smiled back.

"Jayne, I didn't expect to see you in here," she remarked, and he shrugged.

"Been a while since I fixed somethin'," he replied. "'sides, I'm stuck with dish duty today, might as well make somethin' to eat while I'm in here."

"Indeed," she said. "Its not like the rest of the crew is terribly busy today."

"I assume you've managed to line up some work yourself?" Book asked, and Inara laughed as she sat down. Some months back, such a question might have been delivered with a tinge of disapproval, but Book had long since chosen to let Inara do as she chose. Besides, it would be hypocritical of him to remonstrate her for her lifestyle when he couldn't even adhere to his own principles.

"Just one, scheduled for tomorrow when we hit Persephone," she explained. "Its been somewhat difficult to arrange for clients with all the unrest we've caused."

"I'm surprised we're setting down on such a populated world, so soon after what we did," Book remarked as they set the meat sauce to cook. "The Alliance is sure to be on alert."

"I actually asked Mal about that earlier," she said. "But he's got work lined up for us and he says we need the money. Mal thinks its worth the risk landing on Persephone for a while."

"Well, Mal ain't always got good notions in his head," Jayne muttered as he stepped out of the kitchen. "Told him up front that we shouldn't be dealin' with Badger no more."

"Didn't he sell us out the last time we dealt with him?" Book asked, and Jayne nodded. "And the Captain still wants to deal with him?"

"We go where the money's at," came a voice from the bow end of the dining room, and the trio looked up to see Mal walk into the room, his hair disheveled, as if he hadn't cleaned up yet.

"More like where the _bullets_ are," Inara replied, and Mal grunted at her sarcasm, stepping over to the pot.

"I'm not likin' the notion of working with Badger anymore than anyone else," he remarked, sniffing the air. "Mm. Smells edible for once. But this deal seems solid enough, not dodgy like the last one he sent our way. We'll be in control of the deal the whole way, anyway."

"Last time you said that, we got an army walkin' up our _pi gu_," Jayne muttered, leaning against the wall and crossing his beefy arms. "I ain't got no notion of putting us through that again, gettin' someone on the boat hurt."

Inara and Book glanced the mercenary's way, and both of them shared a quick, understanding glance at each other at Jayne's odd - _for Jayne_ - notion of concern for others. However, they were more surprised at Mal's reaction: the captain paused, looked straight at Jayne, and seemed about to say something, but then looked away. Instead he sat down at his usual spot on the table, a frown on his face.

Normally, that was the part where Mal told Jayne _who_ exactly was in charge of the ship. Instead, he was quiet for several seconds, thinking things over.

"You're right that we can't trust Badger," Mal said, slowly nodding. "We're setting down on an Alliance rock, and they're riled up something fierce after what we did to 'em. Badger's already meeting us at the docks anyway, so I'm not having anyone take a step off this boat who doesn't have to. 'cept Inara, she's got business of her own, right?"

"That's right," the Companion replied. "But you're not letting anyone off for some planetside recreation?"

"Not until we've got the cargo on board, at any rate," Mal said, shaking his head. "Even then, not sure. We've got enough enemies out there without inviting trouble. There's feds on Persephone, and while that keeps some of our worries at bay, it makes a whole lot more at the same time."

"I'm for keepin' everyone on the boat," Jayne added. "Don't like the idea of anyone gettin' separated. Big planet, lots of ways folks can just vanish, you know?" At that, everyone looked Jayne's way again, and even Mal seemed to catch onto his oddness.

"Jayne, if I didn't know any better," Book remarked, "it sounds like you're actually _concerned_ for someone else." The merc's eyes widened for a heartbeat, and then a scowl crept over his face.

"And what's so wrong about that?" Jayne said, quick and defensive, lowering his arms. "Ya'll ain't the only ones worried 'bout keepin' this boat sailing." He paused, thinking for a moment, and rapped a fist against the wall. "Lose someone on this boat, things just ain't gonna run right, know what I mean?"

With that, he cut past Mal and headed up the crew corridor, leaving a surprised and somewhat confused collection of folks in the dining room. With a curious muttering, Book rose to check on the sauce, while Mal turned toward Inara.

"I thought Kaylee was the one supposed to run off in a huff," he said, and she snorted. Book smiled to himself as he stirred the pot, but the smile disappeared as he thought on just what would make Jayne act that way. A man like him had to have seen all sorts of difficulties and hardships in his time, but what he'd gone through a few weeks back must have been worse than anything he'd encountered, to make him act so completely differently.

Still, showing a touch of concern for _anyone_ on the ship was a good change, Book mused, even if its cause was something he wished he wasn't so familiar with himself . . . .

* * *

It was about midday by Serenity's reckoning when Mal made an unexpected call over the intercom for everyone to get together in the cargo bay. Wash and Zoë were on the bridge when the call went through, enjoying some comparative alone time, and with a few mumbled curses from the very comfortable pilot they got up and headed belowdecks. By the time they made their way down the stairs of the bay, everyone else had already assembled.

"Wash, Zoë," Mal called, standing in the middle of the bay while everyone else stood or sat wherever they chose. "Glad to see ya'll coming to join us."

"We were preoccupied," Wash replied. "_Navigational_ duties."

"Ya'll are navigatin' familiar territory," Jayne muttered, leaning against a pile of crates. "Hopin' little man don't get lost after them years." A few of the crew smirked at the double entendre, with Kaylee laughing as she sat beside Simon on another crate.

"You got an _awful_ smutty head, Jayne," Zoë remarked, her tone deadpan and serious, and the delivery was enough to make the mercenary quiet up.

"So, everyone's all here now," Mal said, a hair louder than usual, to get everyone's attention back toward him. "Alright, first things first. You all know we're hitting Persephone in a few hours, but what you might not know is who we're dealing with. Once we hit dirt, we're going to be meeting with Badger."

"_Dung-ee hwar," _Wash said, holding up a hand. "Didn't Badger sell us out the last time we met with him?"

"That, he did," Mal replied with a nod.

"So, why in the holy jangling Buddha bells are we dealing with him now?" the pilot continued.

"'cause Mal's a moron," Jayne muttered, and got a glare from several different directions at once.

"Because Badger's got the money, and the job smacks of legitimacy," Mal replied. "Simple smuggling rap, nothing serious. We've got more'n enough cash reserves that we don't need anything risky."

"Dealing with Badger _is_ risky, sir," Zoë replied.

"Not risky enough," Mal countered. "Anyway, my call. All the same, we're going to be staying on our toes when we land. Jayne, Zoë, be ready in case something gets hairy. Everyone else, just be on alert." The others nodded.

"Doc, River," Mal continued, looking to the two resident fugitives. The former was still sitting beside Kaylee, while the latter was perched on a box past head height. Wash wasn't quite certain how she'd gotten up there in the first place; she'd apparently already been in the bay when Mal made the call. "You two know the usual, and this is Badger 'specially. I know he's already met River, so the last thing we want is to remind him she's on board. I know he'd sell you both out 'fore you can spit if he had an whisper of who you are, so, word to the wise and stay out of sight."

"Right," Simon replied with a nod. River didn't respond, but she kept her eyes on Mal, her fingers jumbled together. Wash watched her with concern; she'd been quieter than usual after her last rescue, and he knew exactly what she'd been through.

"Now that we've gotten that handled, second order of business," Mal continued. "May seem apparent to you that, more than once over the last while, we got caught with our pants down. We got lucky last time, but I don't like the idea of relying on our luck. And I especially don't like someone or somethin' sneaking up on us when we're napping. Times are dangerous.

"So, from now on, I want someone watching the bridge at all times," he said. "Daytime cycle, nighttime sleep cycle, don't matter. Someone is going to be on the bridge at all times to keep watch on the scanners so we don't get surprised." He glanced around the room, looking for dissenters, but found none, and received only understanding nods.

"Also, I want staggered sleeping cycles when we're out in the Black," Mal added, and nodded at the groans from a few of the crew. "I know, I know. Gonna screw things up mightily every time we hit port, but can't help it. We all remember getting boarded by that sack of _luh suh _who hit us when everyone was sleeping. Don't see a good reason why we should invite that again. I want two people awake at all times, one of 'em on the bridge. _Dong mah_?" There were reluctant nods around the bay.

"Okay, anyone got questions?" Mal added as he finished. There were shakes of the head for the most part, but Wash spotted Book taking a step forward, his expression thoughtful.

"Captain, I'm left wondering," he spoke up, and Mal nodded.

"Speak up, Shepherd," he replied.

"I understand the necessity of this set-up," he continued. "But I'm left wondering if there's more to this than just keeping watch against intruders."

Mal frowned, thinking for moment, and then, to Wash's surprise, he glanced up, toward River. There was a moment's stillness in the air, and then the girl gave him a slight nod, closing her eyes. Mal looked back down, exhaled, and rubbed his chin.

"Had a talk with River this morning," he said. "She's a bit worried about herself last few days. Not sure if she's able to see the truth in things much anymore, after what happened to her and Jayne." Across the bay, the big mercenary's knuckles whitened and a tightness appeared on his face.

"She's worried she might . . . seeing as how she sometimes has her . . . episodes," Mal continued, not sure what words to use.

"You're worried about PTSD," Zoë said, and Mal nodded. Up above, River's fingers interlaced again.

"That I am," Mal replied.

"What's that now?" Kaylee asked, unfamiliar with the term.

"Post traumatic stress disorder," Inara spoke up. She'd apparently dealt with it from time to time in her clients, Wash guessed. "There's the possibility she might find herself reliving what they . . . did to her."

"Especially considering the state of her mind," Book remarked, giving the girl a sympathetic look. "I've seen emotionally well-adjusted soldiers snap after the Unification War. We had to deal with more than one counseling case at the abbey. River's condition might be much worse."

"And if something like that happens there's the chance for a whole mess of trouble," Mal said, and the rest of the crew nodded grimly. "So, I want someone awake and alert at all times, just in case something does go wooly." He glanced to Simon. "Doc, I want you to make sure we all know River's sleep phrase, too."

"Of course," Simon replied, the typical worry on his face more pronounced than usual. "Its not that difficult, but . . . ." He trailed off, and the captain gave him a reassuring nod.

"I understand, Doc," Mal said, and looked back up toward River, who was still silent but watching their conversation intently. It was a bit disconcerting to have this sort of talk with her watching, but she didn't seem to be bothered by it. In fact, the honesty was a good thing in a way, not like the time they'd had that talk about her psychic powers, where she'd been deliberately excluded.

"Okay, any further questions?" Mal asked, to which there were none. "Okay, then lets' all get back to work."

The crew started filtering out of the bay, with a few lingering glances toward River. Simon walked by and patted his sister's leg, and she reached down and tousled his hair. They said something, quiet and private, and then the doctor walked away, to be rejoined by Kaylee. Wash looked back up at the girl, remembering how badly-off she'd been when they'd rescued her, and sympathy pains ran through him as those memories dredged up the experience he'd had himself.

River looked toward Wash, and after a moment she offered him a sad little smile, and an odd, tragic feeling of kinship touched his mind. He looked away after a moment, the memories painful, and not wanting to bring them up for her as well. Being paired up in the bridge meant they worked together, and Wash had a suspicion that made his mind more familiar to hers, which meant if he had bad memories, she might just experience them as well.

He looked back to Zoë, wrapping arm around his wife, and they started to make their way back to the cockpit. They passed Jayne, who was checking the weapons locker, but glanced up as they passed.

"Hey, little man," he said with a nod. "Don't blow us up this entry, alright?" Wash made a big, showy sigh.

"The things I have to put up with around here," he said, waving a hand in the air in exasperation. "'Wash, don't crash into that moon!' 'Wash, don't blow up the ship!' 'Wash, don't put your dinosaurs into the engine core!' I am _completely_ unappreciated on this ship."

"I've got some appreciating I want to catch up on," Zoë remarked into his ear as they moved past the merc.

"Hey, we need to stand watch on the bridge, don't we?" Wash replied, and she smiled.

"There'll be plenty of watching, I think," she added, practically dragging her husband up the stairs.

"Work, work, work," Wash muttered to himself, surrendering to the incessant pull.

* * *

Mal had remained in the cargo bay after the rest of the crew had left, dealing with odds and ends with their gear and equipment. Jayne was still hovering about, tending to the ship's weapons stores as he usually did when he expected trouble. An hour or two had passed, and they still weren't completely finished with everything.

"Sir," came a call behind him, and Mal looked up from a box of spare parts. Zoë stood behind him, arms crossed, her look pensive and a little tight.

"Zoë, somethin' up?" he asked, dusting off his hands.

"We're dealing with Badger," she said, and he nodded.

"Already said as much," he replied. "Is there issue here with it or what?"

"I got issue with it," Jayne called from the weapons locker.

"You don't count," Mal shot back, then turned toward Zoë again. "Is there somethin' you wanted to say? Private?"

"Badger's a lying, treacherous little psychopath," she said, shaking her head.

"That I know," Mal replied, shrugging helplessly.

"He sells information to the Alliance if it gives him a profit, and he's turned on us before," she added. "I _don't_ like this."

"That I also know," Mal said. "You've told me this plenty already. I don't see a problem with this other than Badger's history with us, which has been both good and bad."

"Sir," she said, her voice low but sharp. "Is your brain missing again?" Mal frowned.

"This ain't like the Sturges job," he said. "Badger's got no reason to sell us out here."

"We didn't see any reason for him to pinch us then, either," she shot back.

"Well," Mal said, and then paused. He looked away, trying to come up with what to say.

"Sir," Zoë continued, "If you want to do this job, you know I'll stay behind you. But I just do not like it."

"I know," he replied. "Got anything else useful to say?"

"I was just hoping you'd see reason this time around when I told you," she replied.

"I see plenty of reason, its just right now we ain't seein' the same," Mal explained. "Badger's got a job for us, and I'm taking it. He turns on us, I got no issue with leaving him in a pile of his own blood and piss. I've got some likelihood to just put a shot into him if he looks at me funny on this run, too. But he's got money, and we're always in need of it. Buys bygones and all."

"Understood," she replied. "But if its all the same, I'll keep a finger on the trigger."

"That's what you're here for, ain't it?" Mal said, smiling, but she didn't reply. Instead, Zoë turned and started walking back out of the bay.

"Cap'n," Jayne called as Zoë departed, and Mal glanced his way.

"Zoë's got a point," the merc said, polishing one of the pistols.

"She usually does," Mal answered.

"Then why ain't you listen'n' to her?" Jayne asked. "This deal don't feel right. None of us likes it, and I don't want us gettin' busted. Too much for all of us to lose on this."

"What's got you so worried, Jayne?" Mal asked, crossing his arms. "I know you've been acting different some lately."

"Starin' the reaper too many times," Jayne answered, and he looked away. "An' . . . didn't do it alone last time, neither." He put the pistol back in the locker and slid the door shut. "Don't get us all humped, Mal. Dangerous enough as it stands."

With that, Jayne strode out of the bay, leaving Mal by himself to consider what both he and Zoë had said.

* * *

It was some hours later on in the day, and _Serenity_ was going through her classically temperamental routine of planet entry. At least this time Mal had the bright idea to stow all the breakables in the dining room where they belonged, so nothing would shatter on the way down. Still, the ship was shaking vigorously as Wash fought to keep her under control and non-exploding.

"Well, its just that . . . ." Simon paused as he walked up the steps leading toward the dining area. Ahead of him, Inara waited for him to continue, interested in what he had to say.

"I'm a physician," he continued. "I'm not a psychologist, and while I have a good grounding in physical trauma and care, I'm not experienced in dealing with mental issues."

"You've been with us for ten months and you're just really bringing this up now?" Inara asked, her tone curious and not accusing.

"I just . . . ." Simon thought about that for a moment. "I always thought her condition was physiological, direct damage to the brain, and while a lot of it is, there's a lot more to it than that. There's only so much I can do for River. I don't know how to treat mental illness, and there's no literature at all on how to deal with a psychic."

"I don't have any training in that either," Inara replied, letting her curiosity give way to consideration. Simon and River were family, as far as she was concerned, so of course she was willing to help, but she needed to really understand where he was going with this.

"I know, but you _are_ trained to deal with mental problems," Simon continued. "I know you deal with issues like this regarding your clients, and I was just wanting to know if-"

"Of course," Inara replied, with a nod. "I would have helped sooner, if you thought it best, honestly." Simon nodded, and gave her a rare smile.

"Thank you," he offered, to which she waved a hand.

"Its nothing," she explained. "We're all friends, and taking care of River is nothing new for me."

By than they had made their way into the dining room to find River at one of the couches in the common room off to the side, eating a bowl of the spaghetti Jayne and Book had fixed that morning - or rather, trying to. She had a gob of noodles and sauce dangling off her fork and was trying to maneuver it down into her mouth. It reminded Simon of her adventure with the Ice Planets the last time they had visited Persephone.

"I hope Jayne didn't poison that," Simon remarked offhandedly as they approached her. River lowered the gob of noodles carefully into her mouth, and started chewing. She held up a hand to ward Simon off for a moment while she ate, and at the very least she looked like she was enjoying it. For her part, Inara could almost _feel _the wave of relief exuding from Simon that his sister was apparently at least a little happy at that moment.

"Its messy," River said as she swallowed, wiping some sauce from the side of her mouth. "Jayne cooks acceptably. Nobody's going to die."

"Coming from you, that's practically an admission that its horrific," Simon replied, and she smiled, raising the bowl.

"Try it?" she asked, and after a couple of seconds' hesitation, he reached out.

"If I die from this, I'm killing you," he warned. River's giggle was her only answer, and Inara was left confused at how easily she shifted gears. In the cargo bay, she had been quiet and distant, but with her brother she was playfully childish.

The Companion sat down beside River as Simon ate out of the bowl, and he gave her a false grimace at the taste, the comical exaggeration on his features belying the smell.

"Tastes like a pile of _luh-suh_," he remarked, to which River answered with her heel into his knee. He laughed and sat down on the couch, and Inara chose that moment of levity to step in.

"Are you feeling alright, _mei-mei_?" Inara asked, and River looked to her, the girl's expression shifted to one of baffled curiosity. When Inara raised her eyebrows in kind, River spoke.

"That's for Kaylee," she said, tone reflecting her face.

"Well, you've been with us long enough," Inara replied, apparently understanding her meaning. "I don't think you're just Simon's little sister now."

A smile touched River's face at that compliment, but it lasted for only a few moments. The ship shook again as Wash continued trying to convince it not to blow up, but the rumble of reentry was passing. Only a few minutes until they landed now.

"Not better," River said after a few more heartbeats of silence. Her tone was now devoid of the cheer she'd displayed moments before, and Inara felt a tinge of odd guilt over having suddenly ruined the moment between brother and sister.

"What do you mean?" Inara asked, leaning a little closer. She reached out and took one of River's hands in her own, and to the Companion's relief, she didn't recoil, as Inara half-expected.

"Came to see if I was better," she clarified. "But I'm not. There's scars . . . " Her other hand rose to her temple. "And ringing. Sounds. I can still hear them, see the blood." She closed her eyes, and Inara sensed a visible effort in the girl to push it all away.

"I'm still here, sweetie," she assured River, who opened her eyes again. Her fingers clenched Inara's tightly, and River's whole body tensed up. "I know it hurts. I can feel it in your grip, and I understand." The Companion reciprocated River's squeezing, and the shaking started to subside.

There was a stillness in the room, and in the corner of her mind, Inara realized Serenity had made another planetfall without bursting into flames.

"Can you talk to me about it?" Inara offered, and met River's baffled, pained eyes. The girl looked back, and the Companion shifted her thoughts to openness and honesty, hoping she would pick up on them and be calmed.

Inara waited for River to say something, but she looked away, her eyes becoming distant and unfocused. Simon watched his sister's face, but her gaze was locked in that familiar expression that meant she wasn't exactly on the same level as the rest of them. He reached forward, waving his hand in front of her face-

-and her hand shot up, grabbing his. She spun toward her brother, eyes widening in alarm.

"Its not safe," she gasped. Simon blinked.

"What?" She didn't reply, and instead turned toward Inara.

"Hide, hide before they come," she breathed, looking directly at the confused Companion.

"_Mei mei, _what are you-' she was asking, but then River shot to her feet, grabbing one of Inara's hands with her free one, and she pulled them toward the front of the dining room.

"They're coming!" she said, the alarm and fear in her voice squelching any further arguments the others would have offered.

River had sensed something, and they knew better then to argue with her as she pulled them out of the dining room and toward the cargo bay.

* * *

"So, all ready to go?" Mal called as he strode down the steps into the cargo bay. Below, Kaylee looked up from the mule, nodding and smiling.

"Everything's shiny, Cap'n," she answered. The ship shuddered one last time, and then settled to a halt on the ground.

"Jayne, loaded up?" he asked, and the mercenary, standing at the far end of the bay, patted his hip, where his very favorite revolver Boo was holstered.

"Ready to play ball, Mal," he said, and Mal nodded. He looked past Jayne, to see Zoë approach, her lever-action holstered at her hip as well. She still looked extremely unhappy with the arrangement, but as always, she stood beside him.

"Okay, Badger's time is about now, so we're splittin' hairs," Mal called, walking toward the control panel for the cargo bay doors. "Let's be prepped to-"

His words were cut off as he heard boots on the catwalk up above, and they all looked up to see River running along the upper gangway, with Simon and Inara following. Within a couple of seconds they had disappeared inside the door to Inara's shuttle, and it slid shut behind them.

"So, uh," Jayne remarked, scratching his chin. "What the _fei-oo _was that 'bout?"

"Not an inklin'," Kaylee replied, Mal scratched his head, not understanding what had just happened either, and then shrugged.

"Jayne, go see what that was all about," he called, turning toward the bay doors and hitting the switch. Jayne started up the stairs after the trio, while Mal looked back to Zoë and Kaylee.

"Let's be prepped to load up his cargo when he arrives," Mal continued, yelling over the rumbling hydraulics. "Don't want no trouble this time around."

He turned back toward the doors as they finished sliding open, and the ramp outside hit the landing pad. the bright glare and chaotic scents of the Eavesdown Docks entered the bay, and Mal shielded his eyes for a moment until his eyes adjusted. He lowered his arm -

" . . . _hun dan_."

- and found himself face-to-face with an Alliance officer, a dozen fully armed and armored federal marshals lined up behind him.

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes_**: Well, _that's_ not shiny.

As with Business, I figured I'd open up the story with something showing off how things have progressed since the end of the last episode, as well as set things up for the rest of this particular arc.

As an aside, though River did play a substantial role in this chapter, the majority of the rest is going to be about Book, Mal, and Zoe. I wanted to deal a little with the aftermath of her experiences, as well as Jayne's, before we stomp off into the rip-roaring adventure the rest of the crew is going to go on in this arc. But first, of course, they're going to have to deal with that minor trouble outlined above.

A couple of other things I wanted to comment on. While I was writing this chapter, something felt a bit off when I was finishing it up. I put some consideration into the pacing, and I realized that I was missing something. I went back and added Zoe, Mal, and Jayne's little talk in the cargo bay last minute to smooth out the pacing and balance out the chapter, as well as give a bit more voice to Jayne and Zoe this chapter, both of whom I felt were lacking enough weight.

Also, regarding River's use of third person speech - and I'm glad someone pointed this out - I know that she spends most of the series talking in first person perspective, and I agree that all the third-person talk is heavily influenced by the fanfiction community. I'm mostly going to keep River talking first person, but moments where she's very out of it - such as her talk with Mal in this chapter - River may shift to third-person. If she's speaking of herself in this way, its a sign she is _not _happy in the brainpan. River is _not _all right, and what happened to her in the last "episode" is not helping her mental state.

Until next chapter . . . .


	15. Chapter Two: Breath

_**Chapter Two: Breath**_

"So, hi," Mal said, smiling.

_'Huh choo-shung tza-jiao duh tzang-huo' _was the unspoken meaning behind those words, but Mal prayed that they didn't realize that was what was going through his head. More importantly, Zoe and Jayne's warnings about Badger rang in his ears, and he began wondering if the little hat-wearing bastard was behind this.

"Good afternoon," the Alliance officer said, his voice somehow managing to drain all good cheer from everywhere in their immediate surroundings. He strode forward, fingers tapping against the clipboard he held in his hands.

_He's got a clipboard_, Mal thought. _A_ gorram _clipboard_. There was nothing in the 'Verse that made things worse faster than a person with a clipboard and the will to use it.

"Um, is there a, uh, problem we need to be made aware of, officer?" Mal asked, biting down the churning shift things had suddenly taken and putting on his best "ignorant space captain" routine.

"Not unless you're carrying one," the man responded. "I'm Lieutenant Ellis, Persephone Customs. We are here to perform a routine inspection of your vessel."

"Routine?" Mal asked, now confused. The ignorance in this case started to be honest. "We've never had to be inspected before at these docks, last I recall."

"That was before the buildup of civil disorder, captain," Ellis replied. "New laws have been passed, and new policies are being implemented. One of them is that all vessels landing on Persephone must undergo an inspection to ensure they are not carrying illegal cargo." He raised an eyebrow. "You aren't carrying anything illegal, are you?"

"Oh, no, absolutely not," Mal replied, hiding the relief he felt. Badger hadn't sold them out; this was just a normal, everyday snag. "I can assure you, sir, we are not carrying _any_ illegal cargo on this boat."

Which was technically true. River and Simon weren't exactly considered "cargo," after all.

"You'll understand if I don't take your word for it," Ellis said, walking up the ramp. "I've dealt with these older-model Firefly-class vessels before, probably the least trustworthy boats in the air nowadays." He stepped into the center of the cargo bay and turned, looking around.

"Well, that's understandable," Mal said, glancing to his crew. Unsurprisingly, Jayne was edging away from the shuttle door, not wanting to draw attention to it. Zoë and Kaylee were lingering, waiting for orders from their Captain, but he gave them a tiny shake of his head and a reassuring wave of his hands. They relaxed, as best they could, which was good, as the squad of federal marshals were walking into the bay as well.

"You got no idea how much trouble I've gotten with that reputation," Mal continued as Ellis walked around the bay, scrutinizing the ship's interior. "Every time we get stopped by the Alliance, they search high and low."

"And for good reason," Ellis added. "Firefly-class vessels are prime smuggling ships." He glanced down at his clipboard, and nodded.

"In any case, we don't have time to chat," he continued, and gestured to the marshals, who fanned out, looking around the bay. "We will conduct a search of this bay and then check the rest of your vessel. Now is the time to tell me if you have anything unusual on board."

"Well," Mal said, considering quickly how much to tell them. "Got a few passengers on board, but that's all. Our shuttle up there is being rented by a registered Companion."

Ellis nodded, pausing as he spotted the weapons locker. He strode over toward it, peered inside the cage, and glanced back to Mal.

"Could you open this?" he asked, and Mal cursed in his head as he walked across the room.

"There some kind of new weapons regs nowadays?" Mal asked as he unlocked the gun racks and opened them.

"No more than normal, but I need to inspect your vessel's weapons stores to ensure you're not carrying anything illegal." Which they weren't, Mal was thankful for. Weapons laws were fairly loose, but they did restrict certain weapons, which was why the big anti-ship cannon they'd scavenged off Haven had to go. The only potentially problematic weapon on the ship might have been Jayne's new grenade launcher.

"It all checks out," Ellis said, nodding after a quick glance at the weapons stores. "I'll need to check the rest of the ship, though."

"You can do that, if you want," Mal replied, and Ellis narrowed his eyes.

"Of course I can," he said, and then his gaze softened a bit, replacing the scowl with a bit of slack exhaustion.

"Something the matter?" Mal asked, spotting a chance to capitalize on the moment, and to his well-hidden exultation, the Lieutenant sighed.

"Do you have any idea how many ships come into Persephone every day?"

"I got a notion," Mal replied.

"One hundred and seventeen thousand on a busy shipping hour," Ellis continued, shaking his head. "And now we have to inspect every single one of them." His words were tired and heavy.

"And how many have you checked today?" Mal asked. Ellis laughed.

'Too many," he replied. "We don't have the manpower." He straightened after a moment. "But that won't prevent me from making a proper inspection, of course."

"Of course," Mal replied, faking a smile.

* * *

The marshals and their commander spent the next ten minutes poking around the crew quarters of the ship. To Mal's surprise, Ellis didn't bother doing much more than a cursory examination of the passenger dorms, instead focusing on the infirmary. He detailed three of his men to carefully count out all the medical drugs.

"Ya'll got an interest in some of our serums and whatnot?" Mal asked, to which Ellis shook his head.

"We're checking lot numbers," he explained. "There was a massive drug theft on Ariel a few months back, and the authorities there are still looking for the culprits. I honestly doubt your crew was involved, but you may have purchased the drugs from someone who we can track back."

"Certainly," Mal said, nodding and praying that none of the drugs they'd sold would lead back to his ship. That was one of the main reasons he preferred middle men - they did an excellent job distancing their sources from their buyers. "Though we get all ours generic, buy it direct off supply stores at different ports and such."

"I see," Ellis said, frowning as his men finished checking the lot numbers. None of their current drugs came from the heist on Ariel, thankfully. They'd gone through most of what bits they'd kept for themselves, and Simon had made a point to get rid of the lot numbers on the remainder, worried that it might get traced. The doctor's humorless paranoia was admirable, matching Mal's own.

Meanwhile, four more of Ellis' men went up to the crew quarters. Kaylee and Jayne followed, unlocking the crew quarters for the troops, and giving them plentiful harsh glares as the strangers poked about inside their rooms. It wasn't until they got to Jayne's room that things got . . . _complicated_.

"Hey, what are you doin' with that?" the merc protested as the marshals emerged with Vera in hand. Ellis and Mal, who were walking into the dining room at the time, were quickly presented with the tooled-up assault weapon.

"A gas-magazine grenade launcher," Ellis mused, glancing Jayne's way. "Corba forty millimeter. This weapon is _illegal_ without the proper permits. I trust you-"

A slip of highly official-looking paper was shoved in the officer's face before he was finished talking, and Jayne's own mug was covered with annoyance as he held the document out. Ellis looked over the paper, let out a mild "hmmm," and nodded.

"Looks in order," he said, gestured to the marshal with the rifle, who promptly handed it back to Jayne. The merc snatched his girl back out of the man's hands and cradled Vera protectively.

"Now, the shuttles," Ellis said, walking up toward the front of the ship without a second glance to the mercenary and his toy. Mal, though, spared a look at the mercenary, who raised his eyebrows.

"Someday," Mal said as he walked by Jayne, his voice quiet and low, "You gotta tell me where you picked up those forgin' skills." The mercenary grinned as he headed back to his bunk to put his beloved Vera where she belonged. Mal, for his part, hurried after Ellis.

"So, there anything specific you fellas lookin' for on my boat?" Mal asked, to which Ellis shrugged.

"Standard contraband, usually illegal drugs, or certain legal ones, as I told you before," he explained, walking down the steps toward the cargo bay. "We've even been getting orders to check for fugitives, of all things."

"Fugitives?" Mal asked, making his voice sound surprised. "I'm fair sure some sneak about on passenger boats like ours, but I didn't think anyone would come _to_ Persephone with all the bruhaha and whatnot."

"Its an off-chance, but there are some out there," Ellis added. "Hell, just last week we had a renewed wanted posting on some girl and her brother. They won't even say why they want them, and they'd pulled the warrant for nearly two months before reinstating it. _Government_."

He gave a helpless, exasperated shrug, and Mal nodded, raising his eyebrows in sympathy, while at the same time staving off a fresh bout of sheer panic. Simon and River were in Inara's shuttle, and they were heading that way now.

_Bad thing. Very, _very_ bad thing_.

* * *

A couple of marshals had walked up onto the bridge, but they offered only a cursory examination while under the watchful eyes of Zoe, Wash, and Shepherd Book. They departed after a couple of minutes, leaving the trio on the bridge.

"Fed said they're lookin' for fugitives as well as illegal," Zoe said once the troops were gone, her voice tight and quiet. "Mentioned someone awful close to River and Simon."

"So, what's the plan?" Wash asked. He looked at his companions, and noted their grave looks. "There is a plan, right? I 'd like some reassurance we have a plan, or a reasonable facsimile of such."

"If they find those two, things are going to get dicey," Book replied. "We'd best be ready."

"If I fire up the ship's engines, they'll know something is up," Wash replied.

"Can you get us prestarted for a liftoff?" Zoe asked, and he shrugged.

"I start up anything, they'll know," the pilot explained. "I can get us airborne fast, but if they find River or Simon-"

"It'll get messy," Book replied, understanding. They were outnumbered by better-armed feds, and if things went pear-shaped, they would have to shoot to kill. None of the feds could be allowed to leave the ship if their cover was blown.

Behind them, someone rumbled up the crew corridor, and everyone looked up to see Jayne walk inside. He had his hand on Boo, and Binky was sheathed as his side.

"Told you guys this was a bad plan," the merc hissed. "Do we got a way to get us un-humped?"

"If we do get made, we start shooting," Zoe replied, her tone quiet but forceful, and Jayne nodded, frowning. Eternally practical, he understood better than anyone else on the ship just how bad things could get.

"Sometimes, this job really bites," he grumbled, disappearing down the stairs to the cargo bay.

* * *

"Hey, don't touch that!" Kaylee yelled, and the marshal that was inspecting the engine looked up.

"Why not?" he asked, to which she sighed, rolling her eyes.

"That the radial discharge socket," she said, pointing. "Feeds static drive core buildup into the capacitors for discharge when we hit atmosphere."

The marshals in the room stared at her as if she'd sprouted wings and her hair was on fire.

"Keeps the crew from bein' cooked alive by waste energy from the core," she explained. "You grab that and it turns you into one big electrical conduit, fry you alive."

"Why's it exposed?" one of the men asked, having understood some of what she'd just said.

"Because I was workin' on it today, and wasn't expecting you oafs to be sticking your fingers into 'er innards," she said, planting her hands on her hips and giving the officers her best petulant glare-pout.

"Okay, whatever," he said, and turned to look over the engine again. He knelt down, looking at something that seemed a bit suspicious, a tangle of wires and piping.

"No, don't!" Kaylee yelled. "That's the primary thermal redirection sink! It collects and feeds plasma from the main coils for the reserves. Fiddle with that and we might get a big cloud of superhot gas meltin' the skin off our bones!"

The marshals glanced to one another, as their comrade backed off, staring at the engine like it was a hungry predator. In all honesty, none of them were mechanics, technicians, or engineers. The boss had said check the engine room, but apparently that was a risky proposition if it was undergoing maintenance and they had no idea what pointy part or fiddly bit could kill them where they stood.

"Engine room checks out," said one man, and the others nodded, before quickly filing out of the room and leaving a triumphant Kaywinnet Lee Frye with a big smile on her face, having vanquished the invaders with the power of scary mechanic-speak.

* * *

"You've been busy today," Mal said as Ellis and two of his marshals walked down the catwalk from the secondary shuttle. He snuck a glance at the clipboard, seeing the usual scrolling light-paper display, and noticed that there was nothing on _Serenity_ on the display.

"Very busy," Ellis replied. "These inspections are killing our productivity, and they've cut trade revenue by nearly forty percent."

"'cause you have to stop and log every ship that comes through, I take it?" Mal asked as they neared Inara's shuttle. He kept his voice careful, hoping that the officers didn't see the anxiety lingering underneath. River had taken Simon and Inara this way for a reason . . . .

"We can't do that," Ellis replied shaking his head and managing a tired laugh. "The data pushers in the government offices have enough trouble just sorting through the traffic data normally, never mind these inspections. We've got specific instructions not to log any ships unless they've been found to carry illegal material or fugitives."

"Suppose that'll keep a lot of captains happy, you not loggin' them everytime they hit dirt," Mal said, and Ellis nodded. That was one bit of mercy, at least it meant the Alliance wouldn't be coming down on them if things turned out peaceful, though Mal wasn't sure they would.

"I'm surprised, but a lot of ship captains prefer to operate anonymously," he said. "I know they've all probably done some smuggling in their time. Honestly, Captain, I wouldn't be surprised if you did it, but that's not my concern unless you're doing it today."

"Well, you've searched my ship top and low," Mal replied as they reached the door to Inara's shuttle. They were getting way too close, and he hid his anxiety as best he could. "You can plainly see we've got nothing odd aboard."

"I know, but I need to make a thorough search all the same," Ellis replied, his tone tinged with a bit of helplessness. "Fortunately, all we've got left is the Companion's shuttle. I really doubt she's got anything illegal, but you understand."

"I do, I do," Mal said, and his fingers tapped the side of his pistol unnoticed at his side. If they found River and Simon, he would need to take them down fast and then get Wash airborne immediately.

One of his marshals opened the door, and Ellis turned and stepped into Inara's shuttle. Mal prepared to draw as the two marshals followed him in, apparently blissfully unaware that the ship's captain was considering how to best kill their entire squad. Mal followed them in, but was cut short as the feds bunched up around the door. Past their helmeted heads, Mal saw . . . .

"Who is it?"

. . . . a figure swathed in brightly-colored clothing, head to toe, only the eyes visible. Those eyes flicked up, and Mal recognized them as those of his resident doctor. He immediately turned and stepped aside, letting the feds into the room.

Inara was standing before her bed, clad in one of the most elegant but frippiest of her dresses, fully decked out in an array of jewelry that could probably have been used as a nonlethal disorienting weapon in brighter light. She was giving the intruding Alliance men a glare she usually reserved only for Jayne at his most horrific, and even Mal found he had a hard time meeting that uncompromising expression.

"Excuse me, ma'am," Ellis was saying, apparently caught off-guard at catching the full weight and disapproval of a registered Companion.

"You have an excuse for barging into my shuttle?" she demanded as the troops managed to enter the vessel. Mal made a point of staying in the back, suppressing a smile at the nervous fidgeting of the heavily-armed Alliance officers under her withering visual assault.

"Well, ma'am, we're conducting an inspection of this ship," Ellis was explaining, trying to reassert his authority. Emphasis was on the word "trying."

Mal snatched a quick glance around the room as Ellis was speaking, and caught Simon's eyes. He was dressed in an assortment of gaudy clothing that was wrapped around him, doing an impressive job of covering up the fact that he was even a man. At the back of the shuttle, sitting on one of the couches, was a much smaller figure, who Mal immediately guessed was River.

"Captain!" Inara snapped, interrupting Ellis' explanation. Mal turned his head back as if she had slapped him, which she might as well have, fixing him with a poisonous glare that would have made a small child break down in tears.

"You allowed these men to tromp onto my vessel unannounced?" she demanded, stepping forward. The Alliance officers parted like a she was an oncoming missile, letting her walk right up to his face.

"Well, it was on awful short notice, _ma'am_," Mal replied, adopting a completely helpless and exasperated tone. "I would have told you, but-"

"You keep handing me excuses, Captain," she cut him off, narrowing her eyes. Her perfume was potent and striking, as effective as the anger in her voice. "I don't pay your insane travel fees just so you can allow police to invade my home at the drop of a hat!"

"Well, ma'am," Ellis cut in, "we have an inspection to carry . . . ." He trailed off, for by that time Inara had whipped about to face him so fast her trussed-up hair slapped Mal in the face. The glare she gave the officer would have made an orbital bombardment preferable.

"And _you_, a properly educated officer of the Alliance, would believe that a registered Companion of my standing would work with petty smugglers like him?" she said, gesturing toward Mal with his head. "To insinuate that a House Madrassa Companion might be culpable in any of _his_ dealings is an insult to the _entire_ order."

"You mean he-" Ellis was asking, but was cut off again.

"I have no knowledge of whatever business this man engages in," Inara replied, her tone quick and harsh. "I distance myself from any dealings he has, so I cannot provide any evidence regarding any wrongdoings he's most likely committed during his time. I spend enough time with my clients and my acolytes as it is."

"And these are them?" Ellis asked, gesturing to the two robed figures in the shuttle, to which Inara nodded, once and curtly.

"Per House Madrassa rules on this particular stage of their training, they are learning discipline and humility," Inara explained, and Mal suppressed the urge to burst out laughing. Of course, the dichotomy between that and how Inara was acting now had to be intentional.

"They are not allowed to speak or even disrobe unless cleansing themselves or in the presence of a client," Inara continued. Mal could almost taste the acid in her voice. "And your presence involves _neither_."

"I uh, understand," Ellis replied. he glanced to his men, and then gave her a quick, sloppy bow. "My apologies for inconveniencing you, ma'am."

"Accepted," Inara replied, in just the right tone to show she didn't. With that, Ellis gestured to his men, who seemed all to happy to withdraw from the caustic atmosphere. Mal moved to follow, giving the others a set of raised eyebrows once the officers were gone.

"Captain, _wait_," Inara hissed, and he stopped to face her.

"If this happens _again_," she growled, just loud enough that the officers outside could hear, "I will take my money and my respectability _elsewher_e, understood?"

"Of course, ma'am," Mal replied, making his voice as cowed and respectable as he could manage.

"Fine then," Inara replied. "You may leave."

Mal stepped out of the shuttle, wiping his brow, and glanced at Ellis. The fed gave him a look reserved mostly for men who'd managed to survive an artillery bombardment together, and the Captain gave him a tired, helpless shrug.

"Well," Ellis said.

"Yep," Mal replied.

"So, the inspection?"

"Oh, absolutely," Mal replied, gesturing for them to carry on.

* * *

"Well, Captain," Ellis said as they stood on the ramp. "It seems this was a big waste of everyone's time."

"I'm sorry the Alliance is making you do piddly busy-work like this," Mal replied, shrugging and smiling.

"Best of luck to you then," Ellis added. "And have a pleasant stay on Persephone."

"Oh, I will," Mal replied, adding just the right amount of sarcasm to indicate he didn't expect to. "Ya'll take care now, gentlemen." He waved to the marshals and the officer as he stepped off the ram and headed down the street toward the next ship in line. Once Mal was sure they were out of sight, he turned and started back inside Serenity, to find most of his crew moving into the bay.

"They gone?" Jayne asked, hands hovering over his holstered armaments, and Mal nodded. Around the bay, he saw visible signs of relief form the entire crew. Wash even paused to hug Zoe.

"I take I wasn't the only one preppin' for violence," Mal remarked, to which the others nodded, even - Mal was surprised to note - the Shepherd. He heard movement up above, and looked up to see Inara stepping out onto the catwalk. She glanced back and nodded, and Simon and River hurried out, removing their gaudy garb as they did so.

"I gotta say, 'Nara, that was the most brilliant moment of hatred you've ever shown for me," Mal remarked, to which she smiled. Both River and Simon bore relived grins as well, both at the successful deception and Inara's performance.

"You've given me ample opportunity to refine it," the Companion replied.

"Well then," Mal said, looking back to all of his crew. "That was unexpected, but we pulled through. Zoe, Wash, I need ya'll to get on the horn with Badger, tell him what's happened, and then we can-"

"Ah, that won't be necessary."

Everyone turned toward the cargo bay doors, and on the ramp was a familiar and somewhat unwelcome form, standing in a natty suit, cheap tie, and with a _very_ fine hat on his head.

And behind him was a large array of hired ugly, with an equally large array of weapons.

"Captain Reynolds," Badger said, strolling up the ramp. "A proper pleasure once more, eh?"

* * *

Lieutenant Ellis walked through the pressing crowds of the docks, his marshals close behind him. The crowds parted around the symbol of Alliance authority, though they were close enough that he could see - and smell- the assembled population of the docks as they milled about, hawking wares, transferring cargo, passing to and from their vessels.

He caught more than one angry glare turned his way, but he ignored them. He also caught sight of black, gray, and purple uniforms moving through the crowds, and in larger numbers than was normal. Federal marshals, police officers, riot officers in full kit, and actual Alliance military patrolling the docks or standing watch at intersections amidst the chaos.

Ellis walked with his men through the long, enormous docks and press of humanity, until they reached a checkpoint manned by a platoon of soldiers. They were waved through, at which point the Lieutenant dismissed his men for a debriefing at the local precinct station and explaining that he had to make a report at another station. Once his men were heading off, Ellis wandered off into the crowd for a while.

He kept his eyes open, and remained aware of his surroundings as he passed through less-busy areas of the docks, under the full control of the local Alliance customs and anti-piracy forces. As the minutes passed, and Ellis sensed that no one noticed him exceptionally much, he looked for a discrete spot. Soon, he spotted an alley between two warehouses, and ducked down it. A quick check in all directions showed he was alone, and the officer pulled out a scanner to check for listening devices. The alley was clear.

He took out his personal radio, keyed it to a specific frequency, and spoke quickly and quietly.

"Firefly _Serenity_, confirmed on Persephone," he said. "Contact with the subject. He is on the ship."

With that, Ellis turned off his radio and moved out of the alley, and back to his duties.

* * *

_What is it with me and armed folk standing on my cargo ramp today?_

Mal looked down at Badger - in more ways than one - and sized up the crook's assortment of hired goons. He guessed they were just for show; Badger knew what had happened the _last _time he'd shown up with a gang of thugs at Serenity's doormat. Zoe had already edged next to the control panel by the ramp, a movement that didn't go unnoticed by Badger.

"You're late," Mal remarked, to which Badger's eyebrows rose.

"What did you say?" he asked, and Mal nodded toward the docks outside.

"You were supposed to meet us half an hour ago, right after we touched down."

"Not an improper arrangement, I agree," Badger answered. He glanced back to his men, gestured dismissively, and they started to wander away. He turned back, straightened the front of his suit, and grinned.

"But it seems some lawful sorts were attracted to this pile of scrap you're so fond of sailing about in," he explained. He walked into the bay, looking about as he spoke.

"Wouldn't do for a proper businessman to get involved with these sorts of smugglers, now would it?"

"So, where's the cargo?" Mal asked, noting Badger's unusually bold act of entering the bay alone, when surrounded by Mal's own and very unpleasant crew.

"A pity," Badger said, with that insufferable smile if his. "I don't got it."

"Whaddya mean, 'don't got it'?" Jayne snarled, attracting Badger's attention.

"As in," he said, addressing the merc directly. "I. Do not. Have. It. That understandable for you?" Jayne glared, and Badger's grin just grew.

"Problem with customs, understand?" the crook continued, turning toward Mal. "Slowing down all manner of honest business, makes a gent's life difficult." He raised his hands helplessly, and started pacing again, looking around the room. "The wheels are getting greased, so to speak, but its going to be a short bit before it arrives. Probably morning, tomorrow, at best . . . ."

Badger trailed off, for his head had turned up high, and he was looking up the catwalk at Inara, and behind her.

"Well now," Badger said, his voice quiet and interested. "That's a fair bit unexpected."

Mal looked up, followed Badger's gaze, and snapped his head back down toward the criminal. He said nothing; there was just a flash in his eyes, and then Badger found three different weapons leveled at him. Jayne had actually beaten Mal to the quick draw somehow, but Zoe's lever action rose more calmly than the others' weapons..

Up on the catwalk, River shrank back from Badger's deeply interested stare. Inara moved between them, and after a moment, the businessman turned his eyes back down to the weapons pointed at him.

"A slight change to the scenery, I suppose," he remarked, turning to peer at the weapons leveled his way. "You lot are awful quick to pull metal on a peaceful chap, ain't you?"

"That was 'fore you looked at that girl like you was gonna haul her into an' alley," Jayne rumbled, and the entire bay shifted to look at the merc. The dangerous words he'd just said were almost totally unexpected; up above, even Simon was struck by that unexpectedly defensive statement.

Mal glanced at Jayne, but of all of them, he understood best. He was the only person Jayne had confided the worst of their circumstances in Niska's captivity to, and of all of them, Mal understood just how far Jayne was willing to go.

Badger caught the violence in Jayne's voice, as he turned to face him directly.

"I got no interest," he said, loud, clear, and blunt. "I read the wanteds, I know the fugies loose about, but that don't mean anything here. Got no interest."

"And you expect us to believe that," Zoe replied. Badger glanced her way, his smile not faltering. "Give us one good reason why you won't sell us all out the moment you step off this boat."

"I suppose my good word isn't going to be enough," Badger mused.

Zoë's lever-action pumped loudly and clearly.

"Well then," Badger continued. "Its a fair understanding that you don't trust me to save anything but me own hide. That's a bit unfair in and of itself, but I'm not going to change none of your thoughts regardless." He scratched his chin, and turned to Mal.

"So, I hear, praytell, of this thing that happened on Ariel," Badger said. "Important fugitives. Dangerous ones, captured by the federal marshals. Doesn't make the big prints, but in certain channels it got around. A brother and a sister." He glanced back up to River and Simon.

"And guess what happened to all the marshals involved in that instance?" he asked, and looked to Jayne.

"Dead." Badger held up a fist and expanded his fingers. "Poosh. Their internal organs liquefied. Some type of fancy sonic weapon. Every last officer of the _gorram_ law. And the fugitives disappeared. Funny fact is, this happened right after a certain pair of men in suits, wearing funny blue gloves showed up to pick up the fugies."

Badger's smile grew.

"Doesn't take a _gorram_ genius to put the numbers together. Last thing I want is to end up a puddle on the floor," he continued. "Word goes around anyone who tries to bring down those fugies, or has any involvement, dies. _Wet_-like."

"Jayne?" Mal asked, glancing the merc's way. Jayne himself had kept his eyes firmly fixed on the back of Badger's head, but they flicked to Mal. After a couple of seconds, the merc lowered Boo.

"He ain't lyin', Mal," he said. "Them Blue Hands we saw were the ones made all that screamin' on Ariel. Much as I'd like to put a bullet in his head, Badger's right on this 'un."

"'Course I am," Badger continued. "But then, you should guess that already, seeing how you've happened to have seen some firsthand work by those who'd keep things quiet about your special little girl." Badger adjusted his hat, looking around the bay again.

"Word has it that this isn't just limited to that instance on Ariel. You see, I get word coming down that Adelei Niska himself made some inquiries regarding a certain girl he had in his possession. Next thing happens, Alliance raids his ship. Marines, gunships, men in blue, with very, very scary weapons. New-tech, sonic emitters, powered armor.

"They killed nearly everyone on his ship. Niska even lost two of his fingers, prior to escapin'. Word has it the whole ship was scuttled."

Badger's smile faded, and he looked Mal in the eye.

"No one who knows anything is going to turn your little girl in, Captain," Badger said, his voice dead serious. "The repercussions would be . . . ugly."

There was a long period of quiet in that bay as Mal considered Badger's explanation. He seemed to be telling the truth, but Badger was Badger, and that alone killed any hint of him being trustworthy. After a few more moments, Mal glanced up. His eyes fell on Inara, whose untrusting scowl told him she didn't like Badger's story too well. However, a look from her eyes also told Mal that she didn't see any duplicity.

Behind her, Mal saw River, and the moment his eyes fell on hers, the girl glanced his way. She tightened her lips, and nodded. As far as she could tell, Badger wasn't lying. Beside her, Simon's expression was understandably hostile.

The Captain turned his eyes toward the crew scattered around the bay. Jayne was alert and ready, but was only giving Badger the usual hostility from behind the sights of his weapon. On the other hand, Zoe had lowered her lever-action, and when she met Mal's eyes, she nodded. Eternally practical and as untrusting as anyone else on the boat, _she_ believed Badger. Behind her, Mal looked to Wash and Kaylee, but their expressions - as well as people reading skills - were questionable. Instead, Mal looked to the Shepherd.

Book met his gaze, and nodded. He didn't see a reason to not trust Badger.

"See, Captain?" Badger said, his smile returning, apparently sensing the feeling around the room. "I sell you out, I'm dead. No amount of money's quite worth that, understand?"

"I understand," Mal replied, lowering his weapon. Jayne slowly dropped his as well, and the tension flowed out of the bay.

"Now that that's settled," Badger continued, as if entirely unperturbed that he'd had weapons leveled his way. "Another piece of business, one you might be interested in."

"We came here for one specific," Mal replied. "No interest in anymore."

"Ah, captain, why do you lie so much?" Badger replied. "You want a bit of cash, and I have it. More specific, I know folks that have some as well, and threw a little my way to pass on the word."

"What do they want?" Zoe asked.

"A meetin'," Badger answered. "With you and Captain Reynolds, face to face." Badger reached into one of his coat pockets. Jayne tensed, his meaty hands still wrapped tightly about Boo, but Badger only produced a small optical disc.

"Details," Badger explained, handing it to Mal, who gripped it carefully, as if it was toxic.

"My cargo will be here in the morning, best time," Badger continued, stepping past Mal and toward the bay. "Hopefully none will be pointing guns at me next time around. Lovely night, eh, Captain?"

And with that, he disappeared down the ramp and out of sight.

"A meeting?" Zoe asked, stepping up beside Mal, and he looked at the disc again.

"Yep," Mal answered, not sure whether to take the offer up or not.

"Does this mean we're stuck groundside for the rest of the day?" Wash asked, and Mal nodded. Though they'd planned a few hours for Inara's client, a whole extra day's delay to get offworld was unexpected.

Mal turned and looked back to his crew. They'd been on ship for three weeks now, ever since that instance on Triumph, and were potentially a bit ship-crazy. He'd been planning to keep them aboard until Inara was done and the cargo was secured, but with a whole day tacked onto their stay . . . .

They needed a bit of time off the ship, after all they'd gone through.

"Okay," Mal said, looking around at his crew. "Since we've got extra time to ourselves . . . ya'll got shore leave if you want it. Best get back by mornin' hours."

Kaylee practically jumped for joy, while Jayne's quizzical, angry look shifted to a lean grin. Wash wrapped an arm around Zoë's shoulders and asked her a question Mal couldn't hear.

"Not so quick," Mal said, holding up the disc. "I want to look over this first, me an' Zoe, 'fore we make any real decisions. If it looks on the level, then ya'll are free to go do what you need doin'." He gestured to his first mate. "Come on, lets see about this." As he and Zoe started heading out of the bay, Mal looked back.

"And if ya'll break anything or I have to carry you back aboard, its comin' outta your cut!"

"_Xie-xie_, Captain!" Kaylee called back with a smile that no one would argue with.

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**That took a bit longer than anticipated. Apologies for the (relative) lack of development in this chapter, as it, like the last one, was intended to set things up for the rest of the story. This is going to lead in to how fundamentally the Miranda Broadwave has affected society since the end of the BDM. These chapters are also intended as a bit of a "slowdown" sequence to show the everyday life of the crewmembers in between their harrowing moments of bowel-clenching adventure - of which there will be a significant amount of in the upcoming chapters. Even though this series is intended to try and capture the feel of the television series with episodic arcs, there's still going to be more literary transitions between action sequences. As great a visual format the television series is, it has its own limitations.

As I said before, River is going to play an indirect role in this arc. However, this story is, as I said before, mostly going to be about Mal, Zoe, and Book, and they're going to take a leading role in the upcoming chapters of Condor. There's also going to be at least one more returning character . . . .

Until next chapter . . . .


	16. Chapter Three: Masquerade

_**Chapter Three: Masquerade**_

"So, first client you've had since the rescue," Mal said, trailing behind Inara as she walked toward her shuttle. The Companion glanced back, giving him one of her pet smiles.

"Its been longer than that," she replied. "Its been close to three months, actually."

"I bet some folks are gettin' antsy 'bout that," Mal said as they paused outside the door to her shuttle.

"I've been getting waves every day, honestly," she confirmed. "Some from the Guild, some from favorite clients. I just . . . ." She paused, her smile faltering. "I haven't had much of a desire to work for a while now."

Mal looked at Inara's face, scanning her eyes, and he saw something buried behind her gaze, something he knew all to well: exhaustion.

It was the same across the entire ship, but for Inara it was especially noticeable. Or unnoticeable, as it were; Mal only saw it because he knew her well, and was so familiar with it himself. As always, Inara seemed to hide herself so perfectly behind her porcelain mask that even after close to two years traveling with him, he still wasn't sure who she was. Of course, the same held true in reverse, and they rarely got to see past each others' masks. There had been the duel with Atherton Wing, and a hint of things when they had dealt with Saffron. The night after they had rescued River and Jayne had been one of the more revealing moments between them, but even then . . . .

"You know you don't have to," Mal offered. Her smile returned.

"We all have to eat," she replied. "And a respectable Companion can't get her hands dirty with your business." Mal raised his eyebrows, not sure if that was serious or just a playful jab at the masquerade from earlier.

"So, you won't be back until morning?" Mal added, letting her slip off into the shuttle, and she nodded.

"I gave him a call, told him about the delay, and he managed to engage me for the whole evening instead of just a few hours."

"Extra money is always welcome," he replied. She didn't reply. After a moment's silence, Inara turned and disappeared back into her shuttle, and Mal pulled himself away.

He walked away from the shuttle feeling just as tired as he sensed Inara was. It was times like these that his fifty-one years weighed down hard on his shoulders. He didn't look it - thank Buddha for medical and genetech advancements - but he damn well felt it.

"'Nara on her way?" Zoe asked, standing at the catwalk stairs that ran up to the bridge, and Mal nodded.

"Yeah, she is," he replied. Zoe nodded, and Mal caught something in her face. His mask wasn't terribly effective on his first mate - no one on the ship knew him better than her, probably because she'd witnessed it being put together ever since the war. But whatever she saw, she didn't remark on it; instead, she held up the data disc Badger had given them.

"Sir, you'll really want to see this," she explained, and Mal's eyebrows rose.

"Who is it?"

"Colonel Walrus Nose," she replied, and Mal's eyes widened.

"Obrin?" Mal asked, more out of surprise than wanting to ask an honest question, and a few moments later they were up on the bridge. Wash, as usual, was sitting in the pilot's chair, fiddling with dials and switches as was his wont.

"So, we got any plans for tonight, hon?" he asked as Zoe and Mal cut across the room to the copilot's station and put the disc into the data reader. A few moments later, an image appeared on one of the screen, starting as a storm of mismatched pixels that rapidly shifted into a face familiar to the two veterans.

"Hello?" Wash called, leaning over in his seat and trying to see what they were looking at. "Hey, guys?"

"That's him, all right," Mal remarked. "Kinda grew back the nose comb pretty well."

"Nose comb?" Wash asked, getting up. "Hey, guys? Am I still marginally relevant in this universe?"

"Sorry, dear, bit distracted," Zoe replied, looking back toward her husband, who by now was moving toward the copilot's station, peering into the monitor.

"Oh, Buddha, its hideous," Wash remarked. "Reminds me of something."

"The milk-catcher, dear," Zoe replied.

"Oh, yeah, that!" he said. "Man, its been _years_ since I wore that. Hey, isn't that the guy who-"

"Colonel Obrin," Mal confirmed. "We served with him for a good couple of years in the war."

Zoe hit the playback button on the reader, and after a moment the recording started playing. It was somewhat fuzzy and low-quality, as if someone had data-scrubbed it to prevent information-tracing.

_"This message is for Sergeant Reynolds and Corporal Allyne,"_ the man spoke, his voice tinged with the accent of a man from Titan. _"Well, last I heard it was _Captain_ Reynolds, and First Mate _Washburne_ now."_

"Got recent intel on us," Wash murmured. Mal hit the pause button.

"Not terribly recent," Mal said. "Feds have that data logged within the last year, from when we got boarded that time. A decent hacker and a quick trawl through shipping records would get him that. Doesn't mean anything." He hit the play button again.

_"I've heard you were going to be on Persephone," _Obrin explained, and he let that hang in the air for a second, raising his eyebrows just enough to put emphasis on the silence. _"So I made contact with a man named Badger, and paid him to pass this on. If he didn't deliver this message to you personally, ignore it. Something's probably gone wrong, if that's the case."_

Mal hit the pause button again.

"Okay, nevermind," Mal said, frowning. "He _does_ have recent intel on us."

"How did he know we were heading for Persephone?" Zoe asked.

"Possible he got it off Badger," Wash remarked, and Mal nodded.

"Or maybe Inara's client tipped him off," the Captain mused. "But them's the only ones in the 'Verse who'd have an inkling we were coming. Certain if the Feds knew we were touching down on Persephone they'd have sent folks with more unpleasant intentions." He hit the play button once again.

_"I'd like to see you two, if you've got the time," _Obrin continued. _"There's a diner in the Undersectors, Gillard's Crunchables, between Third-Seven and Evan's Promenade. 0800 sharp, local. Show up if you'd like to shoot the histories with me, eh?" _The video came to an end, and the trio looked back and forth between each other.

"So," Mal said.

"Trap?" Wash asked, his voice half-joking.

"Obrin is born and bred Independent," Zoe murmured. "And he was soldier to the core, even more than us. I doubt he'd sell us out to the Feds."

"Badger said no one in their right mind would sell us out to the Feds," Mal added.

"No one who _knows_ about what's going on would," Wash replied. "Plus, I don't think we're on the _go se _tray just because of the Doc and River. Niska's got a surplus of hate reserved for us, and we've got plenty of other people who don't like us."

"Wash has a point, sir," Zoe replied. "But I do agree that Obrin's possibly the last person to betray us. Treachery's not in his vocabulary."

"We'll scope it out," Mal said, thinking. "He data-scrubbed that disc. Didn't want it traced. That's got me on edge, but if he did that he's worried someone might cause him grief. Probably the Feds, and that's just a good sign as far as I'm concerned."

"So, we're going?" Zoe asked, and Mal nodded.

"Early," he added, and then shrugged. "Sorry its that bright in the morning." Having to be at a meet at that time practically eliminated the chance of some shore time for Wash and Zoe tonight, but neither of them seemed perturbed.

"Oh, don't worry, Captain," Wash said, resting an arm on his wife's back. "A nice, quiet, empty ship is just what we need for some proper alone time anyway."

"Just don't keep the rest of us up all night," Mal replied, leaving the bridge. "Some parts of the boat echo a bit."

"Darn, no lovemaking on top of the drive core, hon," Wash murmured, disappointed.

"I think Simon and Kaylee already beat us there anyway," she answered.

* * *

"I really don't think its a good idea."

Simon immediately regretted those words, for Kaylee's pout was the sort of thing that would break a demon's heart. It didn't help that River was standing behind her, on the stairs leading up to the upper level of the ship, giving him her annoyingly endearing smile. The pair had ambushed him on the way out of the infirmary, and Kaylee made her proposal.

"Aw, why not?" Kaylee asked, her pout intensifying. "We ain't been off the boat in near'n a month."

"Well, I don't think its safe," Simon replied. "We just got boarded by an Alliance search team, and-"

"And they're too busy trying to find the sticks in their _pi gus _to even figure out there's us under their noses," Kaylee replied, and her pout shifted to a smile. She slapped Simon lightly on the shoulder.

"I just don't want to risk it on a planet this close to the core," Simon continued, but he knew he was losing the argument. Between his lover and his sister, there were too many X chromosomes to argue with. If Inara or Zoe wandered in at that moment, he would probably just surrender outright.

"All we gotta do is not draw any attention," Kaylee replied, stepping in close and wrapping an arm around the inside of his elbow. "Not exactly like Persephone's a central planet anyway, either. They got lots worse trouble to deal with than anything we could get into."

Simon opened his mouth to protest, but the smiles and puppy dog eyes that were assaulting him from all angles were impossible to argue with.

"Somethin' goin' on?" came a burly voice from the top of the stairs.

Simon latched on the lifeline he was suddenly given, even if it came from Jayne, who was moving down the steps past River. He brushed the girl gently, who looked back up at him, and then continued down, putting on a wide-brimmed cap. The big mercenary was clad in one of his nicer and cleaner shirts, and had trimmed his beard back to non-horrific levels.

"Just a bit of a disagreement," Simon replied. Jayne glanced back and forth between the Doc and Kaylee, frowning, and then walked past them.

"Well, ya'll talkin' bout goin' out, I'm thinking you two need to," he muttered. "Lookin' awful pale and serious, Doc." With that, he lumbered out the door to the cargo bay, and Simon looked back to Kaylee, feeling almost betrayed by Jayne's unspoken agreement with the women. Her smile was infectious and as undeniable as an orbital bombardment.

"Okay," he relented. Kaylee started bouncing with joy. "We'll go out tonight, _if_ the Captain says its okay."

"Aw, the Cap'n's gonna be fine with it," she replied. "He practically said we could go on as-is."

"I just-"

"Simon," River cut in, her voice clear and serious. He looked toward her, to see she'd stopped smiling and was giving him her meanest obstinate little sister glare.

"What?" he asked.

"Go get drunk," she ordered, and then turned and started up the stairs, leaving her brother and Kaylee alone in the common room.

"Well, that sounds like good advice," Kaylee said, her grin growing.

* * *

"'specting you back by sunrise, Jayne," Mal said, walking down the cargo ramp with his bulky mercenary, who was checking the lapels of his very fine and very striped shirt. Or at least, it was very fine by Jayne's standards, which meant it was a decent cotton long-sleeve and wasn't wrinkled, stained, or bullet-ridden. The noise of the nighttime Eavesdown Docks hammered them as they stood there, mostly the roars of lifting and landing vessels, over the din of the nighttime crowds.

"Don't worry, I know the routine," Jayne replied. Mal noticed that even with his cleaner-than-usual garb on, Jayne was still packing his favorite revolver at his side, plus what Mal suspected was a knife hidden inside the shirt somewhere. Always paid to be prepared.

The mercenary looked Mal up and down, noting a bit of unease in his gait and stance, and caught on as the Captain peered over the docks, as if looking for trouble.

"Somethin' up?" he asked quietly. From inside the ship, Jayne heard laughter from Kaylee and approaching footsteps.

"Just not feeling too settled is all," Mal replied, frowning. "Surprised so few of the crew wanted shore time."

"Well, you said Zoe needed to stay on for the meeting, and little man ain't goin' nowhere without her," Jayne said. "Shepherd's not the sort to go playin' around anyway, and well, you're . . . ." Jayne paused, and Mal raised an eyebrow.

"What?"

"Well, 'nara's off, an' you don't often got good reason to be out, and . . . ." Jayne slowed, and then went quiet at a look from Mal. He didn't stay silent for long.

"Look, Mal, ain't gotta be reader's to see how you an' her are lookin' at each other," the merc said, crossing his arms. "Just get the damn thing overwith, already."

Mal looked toward Jayne again, giving him a once-over as if he didn't recognize who he was talking to.

"River ain't the only one on the ship talkin' nonsense today," Mal remarked, to which Jayne's face bunched up.

"Look, I don't like a Captain what can't decide which way he wants to go," Jayne said, shrugging. "So figure out whether you want to get some trim from Inara or not."

By that time, Kaylee had gotten to their end of the bay, pulling Simon along. They weren't dressed overly fancy, but she wore a nice pink and white dress while Simon wore one of his darker coats and trousers, complete with the large red eyeglasses he favored. There was still some obvious reluctance on the doctor's face, but he followed along behind Kaylee all the same, giving the Captain and the mercenary a nod.

"Ya'll don't get yourself pinched or nothin'," Mal called after them.

"Promise not to burn down half the city, Cap'n," Kaylee yelled back as they hit the dirt and dust of the main road and headed off into the bustle of nighttime traffic.

"Boy ain't got no idea what trouble he's in," Mal said after they'd vanished, and Jayne grunted.

"Got enough with one woman tying down a man," he said, and Mal looked back.

"Thought you wanted me to make a choice on Inara," he said.

"I do," Jayne said. "Stick it in or don't." Mal put his hands on his hips, fixing Jayne with his second-best glare.

"There is a lot more goin' on there than just whether I want to rustle around her hay," he growled. "Ain't all about sex, Jayne, but I guess that's too complex for you to grasp."

"Hell, I get that," Jayne replied, a bit defensive. "Just that we got enough hormones flippin' about and loyalties going whatever ways. You gotta a problem with romances splittin' up who follows who, don't want it gettin' you mixed up with all them fancy Companion guild laws and such."

"Well, I greatly appreciate your concern for my well-being," Mal answered, his voice dripping with obvious sarcasm even Jayne couldn't miss.

"Good," Jayne said. "Help make the _gorram_ choice, then." He turned to step off the ramp, and then glanced back. "Hey, Mal?"

"Yeah?"

Jayne looked into the cargo bay as if trying to find something.

"Keep an eye on the damn moonbrain," he muttered quietly. "I'm thinkin' you're right to stand watch on the bridge and keep her on the ship. Not predictable."

"Don't worry about that none," Mal replied with a nod. "I'll keep 'er safe."

Jayne hovered by the ramp a moment, and then nodded, before breaking off and heading into the evening crowds. As he left and the Captain turned back to his ship, Mal wondered just which "her" he'd really meant.

Looking up at _Serenity_, Mal decided both.

* * *

The shuttle's man door chimed, and Inara looked up from her seat.

"Come in," she called, putting on her best smile for an old friend, and the door slid open. She rose and crossed the shuttle, as a figure stepped inside, hunched a little with age, his hair white and fading.

_"Lao pung yo, nee can chi lai hun yo jing shen," _she said as she took her friend's hand. Lord Perinal Haroldington smiled back as the door closed behind him, and they crossed the shuttle to the sofa.

Inara's words were sincere; he actually looked healthier this time than the last time they'd met, which had been that rather unpleasant ball many months ago. Lord Haroldington settled down into his chair and raised a hand, his fingers flicking with a speed and dexterity that belied his century and a half.

_I hope there will be less punching this time,_ he signed, and she laughed.

"The years have been well to you," she said as she poured him some tea. "Your color is actually much better than it was when I saw you last."

_I'm not drinking as much, _he responded. _Only so much alcohol the implants can filter out_. He stopped, smiling again, and continued. _And you look absolutely lovely. You haven't aged a day since I first met you back on Sinon._

_"She-she," _Inara replied, holding up a cup of tea. He took a sip of his own, sighing silently in contentment.

_Have you ever considered returning? _he signed, to which Inara paused, thinking.

"In all honesty, I don't think they'd want me back," she replied. "I'm tired of the Guild and its laws."

_That's unfortunate, _he replied settling back.

"So, tell me about yourself," she said. "What has Persephone's exemplar of law and order been up to over the last few months?"

Haroldington smiled at the title, laughing soundlessly. They both knew he was retired, but his history as the commissioner for Persephone's Customs branch and police forces was common knowledge, and part of the reason he was held in such high esteem. Unlike some worlds, law enforcement officials on Persephone were held in high regard for their work and duties.

They talked and drank for a while, though only Inara spoke. As the night passed, she switched drinks at his request, going from regular scented tea to some special spiced wine, and caught up on the drearies of Persephone's internal politics among the aristocrats. There was plenty of laughter between the two as they realized just how silly the political games were among the ruling elite of this planet.

Then, with the incense still lingering in the air and full of the spiced drinks Inara had offered, she rose and took Haroldington's hand, leading him toward the bed.

_Its been a while_, he signed as she sat down with him.

"You still seem as strong as ever, old friend," she replied, running a hand across his cheek, which was faintly ridged by wrinkles.

_I certainly hope I am, _he signed. _At least enough to not disappoint you._

She reached up and cupped her hands around the base of the elderly man's jaw, and smiled.

"You've never disappointed me, and I doubt you'll start now," she replied, and gently pulled his lips to hers.

* * *

With the more rambunctious members of the crew out for the evening, Mal found the quiet of the cargo bay to be pleasant and peaceable. He sat on the platform in the middle of the bay, sipping on a jar of Kaylee's special wine, and taking in the silence. With the ship grounded, the engine wasn't even running, and the atmospheric processors were relegated to simple air conditioning duty. It was a deathly peace, he mused, running his hands on the grating of his beloved vessel's catwalk.

Peace was a good thing, the Captain mused as he finished his drink, but he still felt the urge to get up and move. Part out of habit and part out of necessity, Malcolm Reynolds stood up and started wandering his boat, seeing what he felt needed seeing. He knew Wash and Zoe were up in the cockpit, taking care of whatever business they felt needed taking care of, and didn't expect to find them about the ship.

Mal started down the steps, pausing to check the crates and lashed supplies. Everything seemed in order, and he took a look at the weapons locker by the door. Yep, all guns accounted for, no one had tampered with the lock. From there he began to wander back toward the passenger area, and that was when he found River.

She'd claimed one of the common room's sofas and was sprawled out on it, dead asleep. A book was lying on her chest, open but unread, the pages rustling with the gusts of air from the idling air circulators. She looked content, peaceful, totally unlike how he'd remembered her that morning.

Mal walked past her, pausing only to flick off the lights for the room, and headed up the stairs to the dining area. A scent wafted down to him as he reached the top, and Mal knew the Shepherd was keeping himself busy.

"Captain," Book called as Mal walked into the dining room.

"Book," Mal replied with a nod as the preacher was sitting down at his preferred spot at the table, a plate and bowl in hand. "Smells good."

"Just some of Jayne's masterpiece from this morning," he said. Mal hunted around in one of the refrigerator units for the rest of the latest batch of Kaylee's wine, and found the bottle.

"The ship seems awfully quiet without everyone," Book said. "Or at least, with the noisier parts of the crew about."

"That it is," Mal agreed, pouring a fresh glass. He held up the bottle to the Shepherd, who shook his head. Alcohol wasn't forbidden in his order, as long as it was consumed in moderation, but he already had some tea for himself.

"Was it like this after I left?" Book asked, and Mal nodded.

"Boat was awful quiet when you and 'Nara took off," he said. "Well, quiet ain't right. Empty, of a sorts."

"That's odd," Book mused, thinking about those words.

"How so?"

"Well, if my estimate's right, you only had yourself, Wash and Zoe, Kaylee, and Jayne on for some years before you brought the rest of this crew together. If anything, going back to a small crew would make the ship feel more like home, not empty."

Mal mused over those words just as Book had, wondering how right he was. He hadn't admitted it, but Inara and Book's departure for a month or two had left the ship feeling bare and missing, and he also admitted it would have been even worse if Simon and River had really taken off at Beaumonte.

And the weirdest thing was that the Shepherd was right. He'd flown with a five-man crew for a few years before he'd picked up Inara, and then close to a year after that before he'd rustled up the Shepherd, the Doc, and River. And only ten months of time with them on the ship had left them feeling like a real team. A real . . . family.

And in a bizarre, twisted way, that was all thanks to bastards like Niska and that _gorram_ Operative. Having to deal with threats like that had brought them together far tighter than he'd thought possible after the war. When he'd been took by Niska, everyone had come together to save him, and when he'd lost Jayne and River to the same monster, he'd shown everyone, even _himself_, just how willing he was to get them back.

Mal didn't tell anyone, but he still saw that mercenary's face as he'd thrown him into the airlock. He still remembered the terror on the man's features, and hitting that button was a damning moment of reprehensible practicality. Just like he remembered the look of the surrendering Fed he'd killed at Haven. Just like he remembered Crow's face as he pushed him into the engine. Just like he remembered Dobson's face when he'd shot him.

Those faces . . . .

Book was still watching him, reading his face as Mal went through those thoughts, and finally, the Captain looked back and met his eyes.

"Suppose you're right, Shepherd," he said, taking a sip of his drink. He then stood up, wondering how the hell the preacher was able to make a man think like that without making him think at all.

Mal found his way back down to the common room, and saw River was still asleep. He took another sip of his drink, and sat down in one of the chairs. At least the girl didn't judge him or make him think too much about what made him uncomfortable.

Mal took another drink, and glanced back at the sleeping form. That girl had brought him way too much trouble for his liking, but when he considered the alternatives, Mal knew he wouldn't have it any other way. No matter how hard a bastard he wanted to be, Mal wouldn't abandon her or her brother . . . and that, mixed with his own guilt and regret, reminded him that deep down inside, there was still a decent person under it all.

* * *

The place was like he remembered it, though he hadn't been back here in these parts in close to seven months. Still, the bar was open, the drinks were cold, and the lights were bright enough that he could see while dim enough to not make people stand out. There was a smoky haze from a hundred different brands of cigar and cigarette, plus a few hookas and such at some specialty tables. Decent looking girls walked about with drinks for patrons, vid-screens showed different sports and holos of advertisements from all over the Alliance, and the pleasant din of quiet conversation mixed with the clinking of glasses and the occasional bout of laughter hung in the air, permeating his surroundings.

In short, it was your average bar, which Jayne Cobb liked.

What he didn't like was the presence of more Alliance uniforms than he preferred. All off-duty, mostly cops, marshals, or soldiers, but they were scattered across the bar, their purple uniforms lit by a variety of neon glimmers. There were more Alliance grunts here than he'd seen in any place since the war, and even then only on the occasional core world he'd visited.

Probably had to do with the broadwave he'd been a part of, Jayne mused. There was a notable tension in the air, the kind a grizzled old mercenary like himself caught as clearly as if it was a giant flashing warning sign. Outside, the crowds had been flowing between and around larger numbers of Feds than they were used to, entire squads of armored soldiers patrolling the streets, moving along in armored vehicles, or standing guard at street corners. But in here, the tension between Alliance troops and the civilians was a lot thicker, and that was before alcohol got involved.

Finding out your benevolent government had a hand in making the rape-happy skin-eating pirates of your worst nightmares had a tendency to do that to folks.

Part of Jayne hoped there was going to be a tussle, just so he could watch, but he knew that if there was a fight, he'd probably get pinched, and that would cause all manner of trouble for the whole crew. He resolved to stay out of it if he could, which went against every masculine instinct in his entire body.

That served him well a few minutes later, when a quiet argument became a louder one, and the points were debated with fists and bar bottles. Most of the bar held back, probably out of fear of illiciting to much chaos if the tension broke between the Feds and the civvies. Jayne had to swallow the urge to grab a bottle and throw in himself.

Still, Jayne found it a bit easier to hold back his impulses than he expected. He watched the two arguing men go at it, frowning at their bad form and sloppy fighting, and nursed his whisky. Tell the truth, since he'd gotten off Niska's boat, he hadn't felt too much like himself. Maybe it had been the pain, but Jayne thought it might have been the girl too. For the first time, Jayne Cobb thought he had an inkling of what they might have put her through at that place before her brother saved her, and it disturbed him deeply. It had always been easier to think of the girl as just some crazy, dangerous kid who'd given him nothing but grief and stitches, instead of . . . .

He sensed movement beside him as someone settled into the seat next to him, pulling him out of his dark thoughts. Jayne glanced over, and he found his gaze lingering. It tended to, when he saw a good-looking girl, or even a decent one under good beer goggles, but this one didn't need alcohol to look pretty.

"Hi there," she said, smiling. Her skin was tanned, with good-sized lips and dark, shoulder-length hair that Jayne figured was a deep brown in better lighting. She was muscular, but well-proportioned, and still obviously feminine under her clothes, which were the rugged and practical kind one would expect from someone who had a physical job. Jayne almost would have pegged her as military or a merc like himself, but she wasn't wearing an Alliance off-duty uniform or had any tattoos that he could tell.

"Hello," Jayne said, interested and unafraid to show it. The woman called the barkeep over and ordered some of what Jayne was having, and that got the merc even more interested. Something about her face seemed awful familiar. She looked younger than him, and he put her about her mid-to-late twenties.

"What's a pretty girl like you doin' up here with me?" he asked, gesturing to the rest of the bar.

"Well, the best-looking man in the place _is _going to catch my eye," she replied with a grin, which Jayne mirrored. She had a touch of a rustic border-moon accent, mixed with local Persephone, which made him think she was probably a migrant spacer who based off this planet.

"Now that's a nice thing to say," Jayne said. "I'm Jayne."

"Ashley," she replied, knocking back a shot. "But just Ash, I prefer."

"So, what do you do 'round here, Ash?" Jayne asked after they'd knocked back a few shots each. He was feeling a nice buzz, and as far as he could tell, Ash was about the same.

"Same as you, I expect," she replied, pouring a fresh glass. "I bust heads."

"With guns like them, no surprise," Jayne replied, nodding toward her left bicep. "Who d'ya break things for?"

"Not important," she replied quickly, giving him a look that reminded him of Zoe. Jayne frowned, mulled over it a bit, and decided to let it go. Girl didn't want to talk about work, and in all honesty, it made sense. If she was a spacer, wouldn't do to tell too much detail.

"So, how long you staying on Persephone?" Ash asked after a few moments' awkward silence.

"Not terribly long, reckon," Jayne replied. "My boat's probably leaving sometime in the mornin', and the Cap'n's awful jittery about timin' and such." He leaned a little closer. "Like most traders, you know. Every now and then, runs a little bit more'n Alliance likes, understand?"

"Oh, I do, trust me," Ash replied with a smile. "Still, got to suck, just rolling off without staying around."

"Persephone ain't my place," he replied, taking a drink. he nodded toward the various groups of Alliance off-duties. "I mean, its big and all, but the Man is about these parts, and I've never been too partial for him. Even this far out."

"Get in trouble with the law sometimes, I guess?" she asked, and he nodded.

"More times than I can count," he said, and held up his hand. "And I can get past ten, don't let my talkin' fool ya!" She laughed again, downing her glass, and peered at Jayne Cobb over the reflective rim with eyes that he was familiar with. Hungry ones.

"Planning on staying here and draining the stocks all night?' she asked, and he raised his eyebrows, pouring her another shot.

"That depends," he answered with his best charming smile.

"On what?" she asked.

"On what you're plannin'," he said, taking a sip, and she grinned back.

He wasn't sure how much later it was when his eyes slid open, and he realized he must have fallen asleep. That stuff had been powerful, and he had to admit, he'd gotten tired after a while. He glanced down, feeling the weight on his chest, and saw the dark hair and tanned skin of the muscular little woman half sprawled across his bare chest, barely visible in the dim light of the darkened hotel room.

Hm. He thought he'd had endurance, but Ash put him to shame.

Jayne wished he'd thought to bring his cigars. This had been one good night. Well, he still had some of the bottle he'd bought, and Jayne twisted about, careful not to wake Ash. His arm reached up to nightstand, and he almost reached the bottle when his hand brushed something leather. Frowning, Jayne glanced toward it, to see what looked like Ash's wallet.

Curiosity was Jayne's best flaw, and he couldn't help but peek. He pulled the wallet over and flipped it open, ignoring the money and looking at the cards inside. A few credit pieces, a debit, and what looked like some kind of official government-issue ID. He frowned, and that frown grew as he found her ident-card. Right next to her ident-card was a picture showing the woman with a group of similar looking girls of various ages, all of whom had to be relations.

One of them looked way too familiar, and Jayne's throat caught. He checked the ident-card, and even though he didn't have a reader, he saw the name printed on the front clear as day.

_Ashley Isabella Frye_.

_"Ye-soo ta ma duh," _he breathed.

* * *

Book checked the time after he had finished eating, and headed back down to his room to get ready for bed. As he walked down the steps, he peeked into the darkened common room, where he saw Mal, sitting in one of the chairs with his eyes closed, and River, sound asleep on the couch nearby. The image struck him, and he stared for several long seconds before breaking away and heading back to his room.

Once in his bedroom, Book got ready for bed. As he was undressing, he checked his personal data terminal, and found he had a new message.

_**Lancaster. 0800. Methel Street Park. Got returns on those inquiries you made.**_

Book exhaled, relived that he'd finally gotten a message back. Now, maybe he'd have some answers in the morning.

* * *

_" . . . ndor."_

He heard something at the edge of his consciousness. he thought it might have been a voice, but it was distant, dreamy, and he was tired and his thoughts were heavy and slow.

He opened his eyes anyway, and peeked around the common room. He'd passed out at some point, Kaylee's damned fresh wine being good as it was. He didn't see anything, and didn't hear anything untoward, except faint breathing from the couch across the room. River was still asleep.

With a mumble, Malcolm Reynolds lay his head back again, and let the darkness rise back up and take him back to peace. Then, as he returned to slumber, he thought he heard the voice again, but was too tired to wake back up.

_" . . . cerberus . . . condor . . . ." _

Across the room, the book tumbled off River's chest and hit the carpet as she rolled over, her sleeping face twitching into a semblance of a grimace, before reverting to peaceful blankness.

* * *

The nighttime bustle of the Eavesdown Docks rushed through his ears, but he ignored it with practiced familiarity. His job had taught him to filter the extraneous from the relevant, just as it had taught him the necessity of blunt order over romantic chaos.

He pushed through the crowds quickly and easily. An old cliche was that of sorts such as him radiating an aura that caused the common folk to part around them, but that was a literary nonsense. In his line of work, if such a thing had even existed it would just make his job harder, by making him more conspicuous. He was content to pass through the crowd rather than force it aside anyway.

Thus, he moved from one end of the docks to the other, unseen and unnoticed, until he reached the part of the landing field directly held by Port Control. He stood outside the gate, and gave the guards his pass-key and ident-card. Their machines flashed with his clearance, but did not specify what it was; they were too low-ranking to even be allowed to _know_ how high above them he stood. They let him through.

He could have used the direct-access landing pad inside Port Control itself, but that would just draw attention from those who noticed such things. Better to quietly land at an established docking space, slip through the crowds and the smells and sights which couldn't be easily monitored, and then move unobtrusively through one of the many ground entrances.

Once inside the safety of Port Control, he moved quickly, heading in a very specific direction. He'd already ordered the meeting, and quickly passed the few guard stations with a flash of his ident-card and a palm-reading. He located the building he'd wanted, and passed through security, under the watchful eye of gun-drones and automated defense turrets, before finding the unmarked, secure room he'd chosen.

Just over a dozen men were waiting for him as he entered. He knew their names, had their histories memorized. His operations team, all professional soldiers and agents personally recruited from across the Allied Planets. Some of his sort didn't use teams like this, just requisitioned troops as needed, but a small, trusted cadre of loyal and efficient and - above all else - supremely competent men sometimes did the work of an army.

There were no introductions or salutes. Instead, he sat down at the table his men were gathered around, and nodded.

"Our quarry has been tracked to this planet, gentlemen," the Operative said, meeting the eyes of each man in turn. "We know where he'll be, and we have an idea as to who he is meeting with. This is our chance to contain the potential intelligence leak _permanently._"

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**Sorry this chapter took so long to finish. Also, sorry for the relative lack of development, but rest assured, from about the next chapter on things are going to pick up fast. That said, I _really_ enjoyed writing this chapter, if only for how much I got to delve into the characters, as well as foreshadowing what's to come in the upcoming chapters - and possibly, upcoming arcs as well.

One thing I like doing while coming up with plot bunnies is to look at little details from the source material and build entire stories off of them. In this case, I've used two characters in the series who got tiny, bit roles, one of which is fairly obvious and the second of which is a little more subtle. What I really liked about Firefly was the feeling of a real world surrounding the characters, and how if I took anyone you met during the course of the series, or any event or off-hand name, and could build an entire episode storyline around that character or detail or place.

Until next chapter . . . .


	17. Chapter Four: Contact

_**Chapter Four: Contact**_

He heard her rustling the sheets as he pulled his pants back on, and her mumbles as she woke back up. He really wished he hadn't, because that was bringing up all manner of very good memories that was getting his nether reaches giddy. He finished hitching the trousers back up quick-like, and started putting on his shirt when her hand brushed along his bare back.

Jayne glanced back, looking Ashley in those brown eyes of hers, eyes which had an uncanny resemblance to another pair he knew.

"Mornin'," he said, and saw the barest streaks of early morning light through the window, reflecting off her face.

"Mmm, morning," Ashley said, smiling. Her eyes flicked over his halfway-finished dressing-up, and a little pout appeared on her face. "Getting ready so early?" Her voice seemed to stretch out with pleasant tiredness, and a little disappointment.

"Yep," Jayne replied, looking away and pulling his shirt down, fastening the buttons. "Gotta get movin'," he added. "Cap'n's gotta get . . . all . . . Movin' and such."

"Mmm," she said again, and he felt the bed shift. He looked up and wished he hadn't, for she'd slid off the bed and was standing, giving him an achingly good look at her toned and muscularly athletic body. He hadn't gotten that good a look at it last night, as he'd been too busy exploring it with his hands and other extremities. Jayne tore his gaze away after a few seconds. His John Thompson was waking up and making its likes known to him.

"So, who's this Captain with such a demanding schedule?" she asked, and he glanced back. Dammit, he thought, she was stretching out, reaching up toward the ceiling fan. He almost didn't notice her plucking her bra off the blades.

"Just, uh, the Cap'n," Jayne replied, not certain how much he could divulge. If she knew he shipped with Mal, that could result in word getting back, and . . . .

"The Captain," Ash said, turning back toward him and smiling. "That's a good name. Does he have a last one?"

"Yeah, just," Jayne looked away quickly. "I don't like talkin' business is all."

"I gotcha," she said, and sidled around the bed, sitting down beside him, still very naked. He took a breath, steadied himself, and reached down for his shoes.

"You know, you haven't even gotten a shower yet," she added, brushing a hand along his neck, sending little electrical shocks of eagerness through him. "You sure you want to show up at your ship all hot and sweaty like this, not cleaned up?"

Jayne turned and looked at her pretty face, his jaw trying fervently to choose what position it wanted to be in.

Fifteen minutes later, the hot water was rolling down over his body, and between theirs, his hands re-exploring those curves and nooks and muscles as they cleaned off together. He got her taste again, fresh and warm and sweet, her dark hair wet and heavy against his skin.

_Gorram it_, Jayne Cobb thought as he did it all over again. _Kaylee is gonna . . . gonna . . . ._

He pulled away for a second, peering through the steam at Ash's face, and grinned.

_Gorram it._

* * *

He clambered up out of his bunk with his long brown coat swirling behind him, boots clattering on the metal gangway, his casual smirk spread across his face, and his oldest, best friend affixed to his side.

His other oldest, best friend was waiting at the end of the crew corridor, also clad in her own brown coat, and Mal noted her lever-action was holstered at her side. He didn't know how many other weapons Zoë had secreted away on herself, but he counted on them being there.

"Ready to go?" he asked, and she nodded. "Where's Wash?"

"Worrying," came his voice from behind them, and Mal glanced back, to see him emerging from the cockpit hatch.

"What for?" Mal asked.

"Well, the last time we did something like this, the ship got invaded," Wash explained with a shrug. "Call me anxious, but I've got the boat running ready to lift."

"Wash, you're gonna jinx us," Mal said with a frown. "Luck's already bad enough as-is."

"He's got a point sir," Zoë added. "I agreed that we should keep _Serenity_ ready for lift." Mal thought on that a moment, before nodding.

"Anyone else come back since we were napping?" Mal asked, to which Zoë shook her head.

"Kaylee and Simon are still out," she said. "Same with Jayne. Inara hasn't returned, but she's scheduled away for a couple more hours at least."

"Well, that leaves Wash and Book on board to watch things," Mal said with a nod. "'tween you two, I think-"

"Uh, problem," Wash said, raising a hand.

"Shepherd picked up and left," Zoë explained. "Saw him slip out the cargo bay, 'bout half an hour ago."

"What?" Mal said, not sure he'd heard them right. "Book just up an' . . . ." He pantomimed leaving, eyebrows raised. Zoë and Wash nodded. "What in the sphincter of hell is he . . . ?"

Wash shrugged helplessly, and Mal sighed.

"You mean to tell me we only got one person watching this boat?" he asked as he started for the stairs.

"Well, we've got River," Wash said. "One-girl army and all."

"And both me an' her are worried that she's not right," Mal said, shaking his head as they headed down the stairs to the cargo bay. "Don't want to leave one person on the boat with her if she starts seein' what ain't there."

He stepped out onto the cargo bay catwalk, and peered around, and then Mal went quiet. River was sitting cross-legged on the catwalk across the room, staring at nothing with unfocused eyes and one hand fiddling with her hair. She didn't look up at the trio as they worked their way down the steps, but Mal broke off as they descended and moved over toward her.

"Hey, little Albatross," he said as he got closer, and she looked up, her eyes focusing. Her hand stopped moving.

"Its waking back up," she said, and he frowned, trying to figure out what she meant. Her other hand tapped the catwalk after a second, clarifying. "_Serenity_."

"Wash is getting her ready to lift if something happens," Mal said with a nod. "Though about half my crew is out making themselves useless."

"You have to go too," she said, her words not a question. Again, he nodded.

"Wash is the only other person on the ship right now, since the Shepherd slipped off for some reason," Mal added. "You going to be okay?"

There was a long moment's hesitation, and she looked away, eyes going unfocused. Her fingers stopped tapping on the metal, instead running across the grating for a few seconds.

"Dunno," she said, shaking her head. "I can see . . . birds. Scavengers. Condors."

Mal's frown redoubled at that, wondering again what she meant and what the strange girl was thinking. He finally made a choice, and then crouched down beside her, putting a hand on her shoulder. The physical contact brought River's head around to face him again, and her eyes focused on him again.

There was a long, heavy moment of silence between them, and her gave the girl a reassuring smile and a quick squeeze of her shoulder. A second later, her blank expression shifted with a slight one of her own.

He stood up again, and headed back toward the others, knowing he hadn't had to say anything to River, just think the right things to try and put her at ease. Sometimes, words just got in the way.

"So, what's the plan?" Wash asked as they walked down the steps to the cargo bay floor.

"We head off to the meet," Mal replied. "See what Obrin wants."

"And leave River alone with Wash?" Zoë asked.

"Ain't got a choice," Mal replied. He held up a hand to forestall any arguing. "I know, we just had a meeting today about not leaving the girl alone, but I ain't got a choice. Besides, the others are due back in a bit, so its not like Wash'll be alone with her too long."

"Besides, if things get out of hand, I can always try shadow puppets," Wash added. They stepped off the boarding ramp a few minutes later, into the Eavesdown Docks, which were bustling with human traffic as they always were.

"I really don't think it'll come to that," Mal said, but his voice said otherwise. "Just . . . be prepared, in case anything goes wrong, on anyone's end."

"Can do," Wash said with a nod, and as Mal and Zoë started moving away, he reached out and tapped his wife on the shoulder. _"Wei, bao-bei."_

She looked back at him, and saw that worried look on his face he always got when she went off on a job like this. She never told him outright, but Zoë loved that look, especially his eyes; it was one of the most honest expressions she could imagine.

_"Zhen ta ma yao ming," _he asked. _"Zhu yi?"_

He asked her that often, whenever he got the chance to send her off. Zoë smiled back, a hand sliding up his shoulder and squeezing the side of his neck. It wasn't exactly what one would call a special phrase they shared, but it was close.

_"Shi," _she replied. "Don't blow up the boat while I'm gone."

* * *

Hammers pounded on the insides of his skull, and Simon had to steady himself on the side of the bed as he sat back down. He groaned, and then felt delicate fingers on his shoulder.

"You okay, hon?" Kaylee said into his ear, and Simon nodded. He immediately regretted it.

"I drank too much," he muttered, rubbing his temples. He opened his eyes and looked around the hotel room. "Where are . . . . oh, son of a bitch."

"Yep, you did," she said with a laugh, sitting on the bed beside her lover. "But I think it was pretty well-spent, don'tcha?"

"If I could remember anything from last night," he replied. He bent over, looking around the finely-crafted mahogany dresser. "Did I . . . I didn't bring my bag, did I?"

"Nope," Kaylee replied, moving around behind Simon on the bed. "Didn't think you'd need it. C'mere." Her fingers started brushing his throbbing skull.

"What are- ow," Simon said, as she started massaging his skull. "That hurts. That . . . oh. _Oooooh_." The pain started dulling, and then shifted to that strange mixture of pleasant agony as Kaylee worked on his head. "Okay, that's better. Yeah . . . ."

"Now see, Simon," Kaylee said a few minutes later as she kept it up. "That's the Simon Tam I like, when you relax a bit." She smiled, though he couldn't see her. "'Course, I don't get to see you like this too much."

"Was I like this last night?" he asked, and she giggled.

"A little harder talkin', but yeah," she said, working her fingers. "I didn't have quite so much to drink as you, so I remember most of it. Yeah, we had a good time."

Simon let her keep kneading his temples for a while, and opened his eyes again, this time taking in the room they were sleeping in. His eyes widened as he looked about the chamber, to see an expensively-furnished, top-of-the line hotel room, a lot like the one he'd stayed in after they'd found that huge stash of money a few months back. Plush couches, fine silk drapes and bed sheets (horribly rumpled now, Simon realized, after last night) and decorative wooden paneling mixed with delicate crystal and glass filled the surprisingly large room.

"How much did we pay for this?" he asked, and Kaylee giggled again.

"Good chunk of our cut, I recall," she said. "But you wanted it. For me."

"I, uh, wish I could remember," Simon said, the hangover still holding sway in his brain despite Kaylee's nearly divine ministrations.

"That's fine, Simon," she said, finishing the massage and turning his head back to look up at her face. Her smile filled his vision, and chased the headache away for just a moment. "I remember it just fine myself."

It was nearly an hour later that the pair had finally managed to get dressed, eat breakfast, and check out of the extremely fine accommodations Simon couldn't remember having paid for. The hangover came back in full force as they stepped out of the enormous tower and back into the bustling streets of Persephone. Simon managed to give a nod and tip to the doorman as they slipped away into the crowds, which were rolling past like a rushing river just outside the lobby.

"So, we going back to the ship?" Simon asked, pushing the hangover back as he followed Kaylee.

"I was thinkin' we get some parts real quick for Serenity," she replied, but then looked back to him. Her smile turned as she saw the grimace on his face. "Or we could go back and get yer head fixed."

"That sounds like a plan," Simon said, forcing a smile onto his face, and he followed her into the press of citizenry.

* * *

It was a nice little place, a small bar and restaurant with the usual assortment of polished woodwork, gleaming chrome accruements, and muted lighting. It kind of had the air of a Titan pub about it, making Obrin feel a bit nostalgic for home as he sat at one of the tables off to the side of the main entrance.

It was far too early in the morning for a drink like this, but Obrin knocked back a shot of whiskey anyway. The place was closed, but Obrin knew people, and had gotten it opened up just for his meeting. Most of the chairs were still sitting atop their tables, and the place did need to be swept a little, but it would do just fine.

As he finished his shot, the commander looked around the restaurant, locating all of his men. A dozen troops, hand-selected, patrolled the little restaurant, and he had a six-man response team on a panic button waiting one floor up to come down with a vengeance. However, what most reassured him of his safety at that point was the man sitting down at the table across from him.

"My spotter has seen them leaving their ship," he said his tone clipped and precise, looking down at a small datapad on his hand. "I have visual confirmation that it is them."

"You're sure?" Obrin asked as he refilled his drink. This meeting was making him a bit nervous, though like any good man off Titan, he could hold his weight in wood alcohol.

"Of course I'm sure," the other man replied, smiling. "I would recognize Malcolm Reynolds anywhere."

"You would, Nemo," Obrin said, snorting. He didn't perfectly trust the man, but his history with Mal, along with his reputation and former job, convinced Obrin that he could be useful. For his part, Nemo went back to his datapad, tapping a button every now and then as his network of informants went about their duties.

"The man is distinct," Nemo remarked. "I'm not surprised that you would want to meet with him, considering his many talents."

"He's an old war buddy, and a good soldier," Obrin replied, sniffing his drink and considering taking it all the way. "But he's only really special because of what he's got on his ship. Something he can't put to good use."

"Not exactly true," Nemo said, looking up. "The man has other abilities that I find remarkable."

"Such as?" Obrin asked, curious.

"A very unique talent for strength of will," Nemo said, his voice shifting to the wistfulness of memory. "He is a man who lacks a cause, and is in no desire to find one, but if he does discover some wrong that must be righted, nothing in this galaxy can stop him."

"Isn't that what you did?" Obrin asked, and Nemo frowned, shaking his head.

"I did what was necessary at the time," he said, his voice flat. "What I thought was right. No more."

"Hm," Obrin said, taking a sip. "Really, it isn't much of a shocker. Mal did almost single-handedly hold Serenity Valley for . . . eight weeks straight? With no resupply or air support?"

Nemo nodded.

"Extremely impressive," he said with a smile.

"So," Obrin said, knocking back half the whiskey. "Any other talents Mal has that I overlooked in years of warfare alongside him?"

"Well, there is one interesting talent that wouldn't emerge in combat," Nemo said, checking his datapad once more. "The talent for attracting exceptional individuals to his side."

"How so?" Obrin asked, and Nemo smiled.

"Just look at the very crew he's assembled," Nemo replied.

"What he's got came together completely by accident," Obrin said, frowning. "He doesn't-"

"Do you really think that this many talented individuals ended up on his vessel by random chance?" Nemo replied, and turned the datapad around to show Obrin. On the front was a series of nine pictures, and the names of the crewmembers on the ship.

"The least qualified man on the vessel is the doctor," Nemo said, shaking his head. "And he was a masterfully-skilled trauma surgeon from Osiris, top three percent in medical school. Then you have four other people on the ship who are qualified marksmen, a registered Companion, a former member of -"

"Okay, I get it," Obrin said, raising a hand. "I just need to meet with him."

"I understand," Nemo said, pulling the datapad back. "Though I'm still wondering how you're going to convince him to part with what he is so very protective of."

"The same way I convince everyone," Obrin replied with a smile.

"Coercion will not work with Malcolm Reynolds," Nemo warned. "Believe me."

"Look," Obrin said, leaning forward. "I know Mal. I fought with him for years. You knew him for a week. I know how he thinks, I know what he'll do. I will get what we need from him."

Nemo stared back, and finally shrugged, before standing up.

"If you believe that," he said, his tone telling Obrin exactly what he thought of that belief. "I have other business I must attend to."

"Like what?" Obrin asked, and Nemo smiled.

"Another meeting," he replied.

"You're supposed to be protecting me-"

"I work _with_ you, Obrin," Nemo replied, his voice suddenly very cold and very serious. "Not _for_ you."

With that, Nemo turned and walked out of the restaurant, not looking back, eyes locked on his datapad.

Obrin muttered a curse, downed the rest of his shot, and poured another one.

* * *

Jayne Cobb stepped up the entry ramp into Serenity's cargo bay and frowned. It was big, cavernous, quiet, and empty. He looked around the biggest room on the ship, confused, and then remembered that half the ship had chosen to wander off at some point in the last twenty-four hours.

"Hey!" he yelled. "Anyone here?" He stepped into the middle of the bay, taking off his most favorite good hat (aside from the cunning one his momma made him), and turned around.

"Hello?" he shouted. "I'm back! Ain't no one wanna say hi or nothin'?"

No response, and he snorted. He turned to head for the stairs running up to the upper deck, and nearly bowled over River.

"Jesus!" he shouted, coming up short, "Dammit, girl, gave me a heart attack."

"Hello," she said, smiling.

"Girl, you're lucky I ain't armed," he said, shaking his head. "I might'a shot you."

"You could try," she replied, still grinning, and he snorted again, and then jabbed a finger at her.

"You an' me are gonna hafta have a rematch," he said. "I'm gonna show you just what I can do when I'm not trying to be gentle."

"I won't crush them this time," she said, an impish tendency slipping into her eyes, and he grinned back.

"Yeah, none of that below the belt nonsense," he replied. "An' we still gotta figure out which one of us dropped more _hun dans_, too," Jayne added. "You got a leg up on me with them Reavers."

"Saved your bacon, should be more grateful," River said, giving him a bit of a pout. He snorted again, and jabbed his finger at her once more.

"Well, I am. But just remember, was _me_ who pulled your skinny _pi gu _off that boat," he added. "So's we're even." He started to walk past her, and he reached the steps running up to the catwalk when he glanced back at her.

She wasn't looking at him, and instead her head was directed toward the floor, one arm reaching up to rub the other. Jayne came to a halt, noticing her sudden shift in demeanor.

"Hey, you okay?" he asked, and then saw her fingers were flexing, squeezing her bicep, and that was like-

Oh, _sumbitch_.

Jayne stepped away from the stairs and moved back toward her.

"_Gorram_ it, girl, didn't mean nothin'," he said, reaching out and touching her shoulder, and he stepped back around her. She was shaking a little bit, looking at the grating, her toes squeezing the rivets and gaps in the cold metal. She was biting her lip anxiously, eyes darting about the floor, and Jayne knew she was remembering things she shouldn't have experienced.

He loomed over River, feeling a bit ashamed of himself for bringing that back up, and looked down at the top of the girl's head. She kept staring down at the grating, and he mulled over what to say to River to make nice, or pull her out of this mood, when she finally looked back up at him. He saw some kind of attempt to push back the painful memories.

Jayne frowned as he tried to come up with an apology, and then the pain in her face was gone, replaced by exhaustion and a small, sad smile.

"Don't make faces," she said, and he managed a laugh.

"Better now?" he asked, and she gave him an uncertain look. He hesitated for several seconds, until she finally nodded. Relief flood through Jayne, though he did his best to hide it.

Well, good. Crazy little girl was all better now. That was done.

"Okay then," he said, moving away from River and back toward the stairs.

"Jayne," she mumbled.

Jayne came to a halt and looked back at River, who had arched her eyebrows at him, looking through that insane, tangled crazy-person hair.

"You stink like sex."

"Um," he said, looking into her eyes - damn eyes that knew too damn much, always creepifying him like that - and he knew, right then and there, that she _knew_ too.

There was a moment's silence as the weight of that fact hit him, and his lips tightened. He opened his mouth to tell the girl to keep it quiet-

"Shh," River said, putting a finger to her lips. He nodded.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah. Better _stay_ shh, moonbrain," Jayne replied. He stared back at the insane, mood-swinging girl for a few more seconds, then quickly broke off when her knowing stare became unbearable.

The idea of River telling Kaylee just _who_ he'd just done was a nightmare far too terrifying to comprehend.

* * *

The fresh morning air felt good, he thought, as he calmly prepared to rain murder.

The Operative stood on top of a skyscraper, looking down at the city below. He was a good five hundred meters from the city streets, but had an excellent line of sight on his potential prey, far away and at ground level. The pieces of his sniper rifle quietly clicked together as he and his agents hunted.

He finished checking the weapon once he'd prepared it, and looked up at the many ships and hovercraft passing by overhead. He watched their movements, tracing them idly as he listened to his radio earpiece.

_"Blake, no visual."_

_"Divas, confirm, no visual yet."_

_"Andrews, I don't have anything."_

"Keep your eyes open," the Operative said, picking up his binoculars as he patrolled the edge of the rooftop, rifle in his off hand. "We know he's going to be here. There's nowhere else for him to be."

_"Are you sure he's going to match the visual description?" _asked another man, Gerard.

"We have good intel on him from less than three months ago," the Operative said. "This is going to be current."

A few more minutes passed, the Operative staring down at the crowds below. He watched families pass, the occasional Alliance patrol moving through the streets, resplendent in their purple and blue armor. They were easily identifiable, as most citizens gave them a wide berth.

_"Possible visual," _Blake said suddenly. _"Thirty meters southeast of the fountain."_

_"Copy, confirming it,"_ Gerard added. _"Moving north."_

"Standby," the Operative said, peering through his binoculars. He moved through the crowd, and couldn't see anything. "What's he wearing?"

_"Brown coat, blue pants, white shirt," _Divas said. _"Generic."_

"_Too_ generic," the Operative said, a tight smile on his face. To hunting eyes like his, the man stood out like a beacon, amidst the much more colorful crowd. "I see him. All units, stand ready."

_"Copy," _came a series of responses over the radio. The Operative watched him as he moved through the crowd, and then paused. A few moments later, he spotted someone else moving with him. A second figure, harder to see, but definitely alongside him.

"Second target spotted," the Operative said, and set his rifle down on its bipod. He shifted around to look down the scope. "Snatch teams, stand by to intercept."

_"Copy."_

The Operative watched through the scope, his eyes locked on his target's head, the sights aligned perfectly for a kill shot.

Now, he just had to wait for the right moment - _confirmation_.

* * *

"We're being followed," Zoë whispered into Mal's ear. He frowned, and nodded.

"Thought so," he replied as they threaded their way through the crowds and toward the building across the street.

"Sir, I don't like this," she hissed into his ear, and he glanced back.

"I don't like it either. Somethin's up, I aim to find out what."

"Should we just scrub the meet?" she asked. Mal continued walking, mulling his options over.

"I don't like to run, even if its not all perfectional and such," Mal muttered.

"Sir, you run all the time when things aren't right," Zoë replied. Mal looked back to her again, his jaw working for a second.

"Well, now . . . I ain't," he replied, and turned back, continuing onward. She followed right behind him, one hand tapping her holstered lever-action.

They were close to the restaurant in question, pushing through the colorful denizens of the street. Mal made it a point to keep a safe distance from the many Alliance patrols, which was what everyone else was doing too; no need to argue with the masses. People kept giving the troops harsh glares or an even wider berth than usual. Mal understood why, and he had himself to thank for the thick tensions in the street.

Soon enough, the pair reached the building in question, a large, many-storied building rising up into the air, housing dozens of businesses, including the restaurant in question that Obrin wanted to meet them at. They moved into the lower level, which was a large, crowded atrium passage that gave access to other streets on the opposite side of the building. They passed a huge, ornate fountain, and Mal couldn't help but look up, to see the building was an open-air mall rising up into the sky, all crystal and glass and shaped, gleaming metal. The pair veered off, locating and cramming their way into an elevator filled with people of various levels of personal hygiene.

The pair pushed their way off the elevator at the fourth floor, and worked their way around an open balcony ringing the interior of the huge glass and steel building. They worked their way around the upper walkways until they reached the east end of the building, where they found a quaint little restaurant by the happy name of "Gillard's Crunchables" nestled into one corner.

The front door was open, when Mal noted it shouldn't have been open for the next four hours or so, according to the kanji on the front of the doors. They stepped inside the clean, dimly lit little diner, and found themselves facing a half-dozen men in casual clothes and long coats.

The men gave Mal and Zoë a quick once over, and one of them spoke something into his coat sleeve, and a second later he gestured for them to follow. They traced a path through the lines of wooden table toward a booth by a window, and both Mal and Zoë noted several more goons patrolling the restaurant.

"Twelve men, all told," she whispered, and Mal nodded.

"Probably more in the kitchen, and if he's like I remember, he's got to have a reserve team too."

"Twenty men, suppose?" she asked.

"More than that," Mal replied. Any further conversation came to an end as they neared the booth, where they saw the man they once knew as Colonel Lee Obrin. He looked exactly like he had on the video, save that he was drinking from a bottle of whiskey. As soon as the pair got close, he smiled - raising the enormous mustache on his face - and lifted his glass to the pair.

"Malcolm Reynolds," he said, laughing. "Captain Malcolm Reynolds. And Zoë! You two have been . . . . how many years has it been?"

"Six, sir," Mal replied, and Obrin's smile grew.

"Six years! Six years since the war ended, and look at you two!" He stood up, extending his hand, which Mal shook. He noted he had a neutral grip, not to strong. Obrin also shook Zoë's hand, and Mal noticed her grip was a bit tighter, testing him. If Obrin noticed it, he didn't show, as he then gestured to the booth.

"Come on, sit, you two!" he said, settling back into his seat, and Mal and Zoë dropped into the plus chair opposite him. He took a sip of his whiskey, regarded them, and shook his head.

"Six years already since the war," he said. "And you two made such a name for yourselves since then."

"Trying to avoid making a name, really," Mal replied, to which Obrin chuckled.

"That's not what I hear," he said. "Feels like just last week we were fighting together on some backwater shithole to keep the fascists at bay, eh?"

"It feels longer for us, sir," Zoë replied, and glanced at Mal when Obrin simply nodded. Mal nodded slightly, catching the response, or lack thereof. Obrin seemed to be remembering the war too fondly, and wasn't objecting to them calling him "sir." That meant something significant.

Mal and Zoë - the latter in particular - both knew not all the Browncoats had left that war feeling their business with the Alliance was concluded.

"Not all of us left that war so easily," Obrin said, shrugging. "Most of our brigade is dead or gone now. Some of us found our way after the war was done, not at all. Half the Overlanders who didn't get killed ended up selling themselves as mercenaries and got killed anyway, you know that?"

"Haven't had much contact with the old brigade, honestly," Mal replied, and Obrin nodded, looking into his glass.

"Well, have you at least been in contact with that kid, the one who took my old milk-snatcher off?"

"Tracy," Zoë said, and Obrin nodded.

"Yes, him! Have you heard from him? I always wondered what happened to him."

Mal took a breath, those words dredging up some very bad memories. Zoë looked away, and Obrin caught the looks on their faces. His smile faded, and he didn't seem surprised at the next words from Mal.

"Tracy's dead," Mal said, his words heavy. "Near'n four months now."

"Oh," Obrin said, exhaling. He looked down to his drink, and knocked the rest of it back. Once he was done, he stared into the glass for a few moments longer. "He was a good kid. Stupid, but his heart was in the right place." He looked up. "Were you two there? His last moments?"

"Yes, sir," Zoë said, quietly. "We were." Obrin's smile crept back, tired but resilient.

"That's good, at least. At least he was with friends."

"Colonel," Mal said after a few more seconds' silence. "I'm, ah, sorta wondering why you called us here."

"Isn't it enough to shoot the histories with your old CO?" Obrin asked, pouring some more. He offered them the bottle, to which both Mal and Zoë declined.

"It would be," Mal said, and managed a friendly smile of his own. "I'd love to get together with all of the old survivors for a nice drink and all, but this doesn't strike me as a well-meaning get-together. That whole thing about shooting the histories is one big pile of _fei-oo_, Colonel."

Obrin didn't seem surprised or shocked at Mal's suggestion.

"How'd you guess?" he asked, sipping from his glass.

"Well, the restaurant is supposed to be closed right now, that was kind of a giveaway," Mal said. "And more telling is that no one here on Persephone knew we were coming, save for Badger, and you paid Badger a lot of money to deliver that message. You don't pay people hefty piles of pretty cash to simply deliver a message for a friendly get-together, normally."

"Sharp, as always," Obrin said with a nod. He leaned forward, and his smile became much more conspiratorial. "I've got an offer for you two. Very lucrative."

"I like lucrative," Mal replied, raising his eyebrows. "So, lay it on us."

* * *

"Zoë an' Mal already gone?" Jayne asked as he rumbled up the steps to the cockpit.

"Yep," Wash replied, reclining in his pilot's chair. "And thank Buddha you're here, Jayne. Mal was pitching a fit over leaving the ship with just me and River."

"What about the Shepherd?" Jayne asked, plopping down in the copilot's chair.

"Book ran off early for something or other," Wash said with a shrug. "No one ever tells me anything around here. I feel unloved."

"Doc an' Kaylee are still out too," Jayne muttered, and Wash nodded.

"Just you, me, River, and Spartacus."

"Spartawha?" Jayne said, raising an eyebrow. Was the girl's crazy contagious now?

"This," Wash said, leaning forward and grabbing one of his plastic dinosaurs off the pilot's station.

"Is," he spun back, and pointed the dinosaur at Jayne.

"Spartacus!" As Wash said that, the dinosaur bounced off Jayne's forehead, and he jerked back, cursing. Jayne looked down at the dinosaur, then at Wash, his expression a mixture of annoyance and confusion.

"That supposed to be a joke?" he asked, and Wash frowned.

"Sounded better in my head," he mused, and turned back to his station.

"You namin' your _gorram_ toys now?" Jayne growled, picking up the plastic stegosaur.

"I get bored," Wash replied, and then the dinosaur bopped off his head. "Ow! Hey, that is very less funny when you do it to me!" Jayne chuckled, putting his boots up on the co-pilot's station.

"Weren't funny in the first place," he replied.

A few seconds passed where Wash glared at Jayne, and he grinned back, before the pilot finally looked away.

"Well, let's get back to quiet peacableness," Wash muttered, checking the systems again. "Just good old fashioned boring."

"Boring's good," Jayne said, picking at his teeth with his fingernails. "Been too noisy lately. Nice bit of silence would be fun now."

"I bet, after last night," Wash replied. "How much did you spend on booze and ladies of high establishment?"

"Lots on the former, none on th' other," Jayne said, and Wash looked up, eyebrows rising.

"Jayne, not going out whoring after six weeks on the boat with nothing to do?" he said, his voice unbelieving. "Well, now I know that when Zoë gets back, she'll be wearing a mustache."

"Ha _ha_," Jayne replied. "I got me some trim anyways, just not the chargin' kind."

"Anyone we know?" Wash asked.

"Uh, nope," Jayne said quickly. "No one at all we might have any relations to, I reckon."

"No, of course not," Wash said. "Maybe we just-"

His next verbal jab stopped as he heard something echoing through the ship. For a heartbeat, neither man realized what it was, but then they recognized the sound. Wash and Jayne locked eyes, and both shot to their feet faster than mankind ought be able to rise from a chair. They both ran for the bridge door, Jayne managing to take the lead as they charged out into the crew corridor, the clatter of their shoes not completely drowning out the noise that rolled up from belowdecks.

Down below, River was screaming.

* * *

The crowds were thick, noisy, and _quite_ colorful. A lesser-trained man might have missed someone he knew since childhood passing by a dozen feet in the chaos of Persephone's bustling morning traffic, but the unassuming priest had his ways of finding people in the crowds.

Thus, he wasn't surprised as he walked through the plaza in the middle of Methel Park, when a hand clasped his shoulder. he turned, a wide smile forming on his lips as he did so.

"Lancaster," he said, facing the man who'd grabbed him, who seemed a bit surprised.

"Book," he said, shaking his head as he laughed. "How'd you know it was me?"

"I saw you a hundred meters off, old friend," Book replied, patting Lancaster's shoulder. The man in question was a small person, thin and wiry, with the pale, unhealthy skin of a man who didn't get out much and shaggy black hair. Lancaster gestured toward one end of the plaza, where some benches stood, and they made their way toward them.

"Its been way too long, man," Lancaster said, and Book shrugged.

"I've been out of the world for a spell," he explained. "A few years now, in the abbey."

"The abbey," Lancaster echoed, shaking his head. "All this time, and I still don't believe _you_ found religion."

"There are stranger things in the 'verse, my friend," Book replied, his smile fading, and then returning a few moments later as he pushed the memories away. They settled down on the benches, looking across the plaza and the swirling assortment of humanity.

"So, you wanted to meet with me," Book said, his voice a bit lower, and Lancaster nodded.

"You made that inquiry a month back," he replied. "Took me some time, and had a close scrape here and there, but . . . ."

"You're not in trouble, are you?" Book asked, to which Lancaster waved a hand dismissively.

"Nothing," he said quickly. "Besides, it doesn't matter. You said you needed this, so-"

"I don't want to put you in unnecessary danger, Lancaster," Book interrupted. "This is a serious matter, and if you think you're in trouble-"

"I'm _not_," Lancaster replied quickly, shaking his head. "And don't forget, I owe you huge. More than just my life, man. If it weren't for you, I'd be bones lashed to a Reaver hulk, and for that, you get whatever you want from me."

Book sighed. He knew he could trust Lancaster - for all the dirty business he did, he was a decent man. But the prospect of him getting in over his head for something like this gnawed at the priest's soul, guilty specters hovering over his head.

"What did you find?" Book asked, and Lancaster smiled.

"It wasn't easy," he explained. "Naturally, nothing on this available publicly on the Cortex, and the real meat is most likely hidden way in some Alliance ghost server on a cold little black rock a hundred thousand klicks from anything resembling an active port connection."

"But," Book said, leaning a little closer.

"But the guys behind this thing, they send messages. Mails, waves, data transfers, file attachments. They get scrubbed, of course, but data passes through a lot of connections, a lot of nodes. Bits and bytes get lost here or there, waiting to be picked up. You know the saying, you can't stop the signal, and signals are just data. Hard to find, but I'm better than most."

"What did you get?"

Lancaster's grin faded, and he reached into his pocket, producing a small data needle. He looked down at it, and then looked back up.

"Some video files, documents, text data, three-dimensional holos, captures, the works. All manner of stuff." He looked away for a minute, and shook his head. "Most of what I managed to compile was encrypted. I haven't been able to make heads or tails of it yet, but the stuff I could break . . . _gorram_ it, Book, you said this was serious, but this is way past serious."

"How bad is it?" Book asked, eyeing the data needle. Lancaster looked around quickly, and leaned in much closer.

"Book, this _luh suh_, some of it could bring down the government," he whispered. "I mean, this ain't Miranda. Miranda wasn't personal, it was a mistake, a bad one, but a mistake that's a decade old. Half the guys behind it are out of office now anyway. This is stuff they're doing _now_, and its _worse _than Miranda. Way, _way_ worse."

"You mean . . . ."

"Book, I haven't even _started_ decrypting this, but I can tell you that if the first few data files are any indicator, if this hits the public eye you're going to have a second Unification War. The entire Alliance might tear itself apart."

* * *

"Look, Mal," Obrin said, tapping the table. "You know that just because we lost the war, it isn't over."

"War's been done six years now, Lee," Mal said, and glanced at Zoë. Her lips tightened.

"You and I both know its not done yet," Obrin replied. "We're still fighting it."

"We're all just folk now," Mal said. "Me in particular. I'm done. _We're_ done."

"That's not what I hear," Obrin replied, a dangerous gleam to his smile. "What I hear, you were behind a little broadwave about a small place called Miranda. Got the Alliance _all_ worked up."

Mal didn't reply, instead simply meeting Obrin's gaze evenly. They locked eyes for several long heartbeats.

"We need people like you, Mal," Obrin said, finally.

"We?" Zoë asked, and he nodded.

"Zoë, you would understand. That business with the Dust Devils-"

"Long. _Done_." Mal's words were cold and icy, and promised a whole 'verse of danger. Obrin wisely backed off.

"The Browncoats haven't surrendered, Mal," Obrin continued. "We're going to rise again."

"And I don't give a good _gorram_," Mal said. "I'm done fighting. I just want to go my way."

"You don't want to follow a cause you know it right, _Sergeant_?"

"No, _Lee_, you don't get it," Mal growled, leaning forward into Obrin's face. "I've already got a cause I know is right and proper. I'm not caring about whatever idiocy you've got planned, mostly because I don't know if your brand of stupid is the right kind."

Obrin considered those words for a bit, and finally sighed.

"Well, our loss," he said, leaning back and taking a sip of his whiskey. "Would have paid well, too."

"My whole crew nearly got killed because I followed a cause when I should have been looking out for them," Mal rumbled. "I'm not going to endanger them just for your petty cash."

"Very protective of your crew, I know," Obrin said with a nod. "Well, that's fine. I understand."

"We done here?" Zoë asked, to which Obrin shrugged.

"I did have another bit of business I wanted to discuss," he explained. "Substantially more important than seeing if I could recruit you into helping us."

"That being?" Mal asked, curious.

"It has to do with . . . _Miranda_," Obrin said, peering thoughtfully into his glass.

"What about Miranda?" Mal asked, suddenly on edge. The way he'd said that . . . .

"There's . . . _questions_ about how you did it," Obrin said, looking back up at the Captain. "Questions about how you learned _about_ Miranda. _How_ you knew how to pull that off. _How_ you knew the Alliance's darkest secret."

Mal looked back, feeling a chill going down his spine.

"That's something I'm in no hurry to tell no one," he replied, straight and blunt.

"Oh, don't worry about that, Mal," Obrin said, smiling. "I already know your little secret."

"Then what do you . . . ." Mal said, and stopped as Obrin produced a photograph from his coat pocket.

"_How_ you knew about Miranda is of great interest to us," he explained, sliding the photo across the table. "Because what we truly need from you is the way you learned one of the Alliance's darkest secrets."

They looked down at the photograph, and Mal's chill doubled over. He saw limp, dark hair, with pale, sallow skin in cold, equally pale light, and a blank face, devoid of life. But what hit him most were the eyes: dark, cold, _empty_. Eyes lacking in hope or purpose, echoing only despair and a hint of painful, uncomprehending trauma.

He'd seen the face before, plenty of times, but never like this. Never so . . . broken. So _dead_, while still alive.

Mal looked back up at Obrin, narrowing his eyes, and Obrin's smile returned, but now with an echo of danger to it. He saw the recognition in Mal's face, and the quiet fury spreading across his features. Beside him, Zoë's face and lips tightened up, and she met Obrin's gaze as well.

"Yes, Malcolm," Obrin said with a nod. "We need your little . . . _witch_."

* * *

She was curled up in the common room, shaking wildly, arms wrapped around her stomach in a fetal position.

"Iron . . . iron and carbon and pressed proper alloy at temperatures with the darkness and processing through . . . ."

"Hey, girl!" Jayne yelled, thundering down the steps and running toward her, Wash a half-step behind. He dropped to one knee beside her as she lay shaking on the floor, eyes wide and roving about, unfocused. Her lips fumbled, words running out of them without inflection or meaning.

". . . .feathers over the desert and searching for carrion . . . gates of Tartarus, iron fencing and brass, with three maws hungering . . . ."

"River!" Wash said, dropping down in front of her as Jayne tried to shake her out of the shivering fit she was going through. "River, its me! Its Wash and Jayne!"

" . . . the meat is hard, it breaks the beak, cold and shiny and unyielding . . . ."

"Girl, speak some damn sense!" Jayne said, picking River up. She jerked, screaming and lashing out, punching Jayne in the jaw. He recoiled, more from surprise than actual pain, and River's knuckles came away covered in her own blood. She thrashed wildly, backing into Wash, who quickly wrapped his arms around her.

"I can see him! He's up above, watching the gates of hell through glass, and he knows! He knows! He knows everything!"

"River, I-" Wash began to say, and then an idea hit him. "River, what does he know?"

"Everything!" River said, closing her eyes and shaking uncontrollably in his grip, though she stopped thrashing. Jayne stepped closer, watching as her fingers rose up to her temples, and she started sobbing. "He knows everything. He knows what we're after, what lies in the gates of hell, waiting for us all . . . ."

"Girl, calm down," Jayne said as she spoke gibberish. He stepped up, and reached out to touch her shoulder. "Talk somethin' straight."

"I can . . . its not rela . . . reli . . . its random and I can see . . . I'm not, I am, I . . . ." she mumbled, the shakes subsiding, and she looked up, at Jayne, and then back to Wash.

"Cerberus," she breathed. "Condor. Metal. Steel." Her eyes widened.

"Steel Condor," she breathed. "They're Steel Condor!" Both Jayne and Wash's brows crinkled at the unfamiliar term.

"Who is Steel Condor?" Wash asked, not understanding.

"Everyone," she breathed, and then screamed. _"Everyone!" _

* * *

_"Sir, I see it," _whispered Divas.

_"Confirm," _Blake added. _"Clear visual on the package."_

"Its in the open. These are our guys. I have a clear shot," whispered the Operative, his voice cold and calm. "Snatch teams, standby."

_"Ready," _came a chorus of responses.

The Operative exhaled, held his breath, his sights lined up on his victim's head, and took the shot.

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**And with that, things are going to pick up _fast_.

Like I said, River isn't having a direct role on this arc, but she is important to it. As I said before, this series is going to have River play a central role - a big part of the series is going to be Mal and his crew's fight against the Alliance in general and the Academy in particular, and also of their fight against the "good guys," as well as internal conflicts within the crew, plus endless numbers of regular badguys and thugs who have the unfortunate tendency to get in their way.

Sorry about the lack of Inara this chapter, but she's going to become much more important in the upcoming ones. Also, int he upcoming chapters, you can expect a lot more action. Things have been slow going thus far, but that's changing quick.

Until next chapter . . . .


	18. Chapter Five: Draw!

_**Chapter Five: Draw**_

"You're quiet," she whispered, and beside her, he shook with silent laughter. Inara smiled back as he pushed himself up, exhaling. After a few moments, his hands rose.

_I didn't disappoint, did I? _Haroldington asked with his elderly yet spry fingers.

"Never," she reassured him, and rose as well. "But you understand that what we've done is not about pleasing me, correct?" He smiled back.

_Inara, if you're not enjoying your work, I would be heartbroken_, he signed. _And not because that would hurt my pride._

It was her turn to laugh, and she rose from the bed. As she stretched her muscles, she glanced back, to see her friend begin signing once more.

_You still fly with Captain Reynolds, I'm guessing? _he asked, and she nodded.

"We had a brief breaking of interests, but I rejoined his crew a few months back, yes." As she spoke, she retrieved her tea set. "Would you like some?"

_Please, _Haroldington signed back. _You said you rejoined his crew? I thought you weren't part of it?_

"Technically, I'm not," she said with an embarrassed sigh. She shouldn't have let that slip, she realized. "Though I am close to everyone on the ship these days. We've flown together for so long that . . . ." In the gap she left, Haroldington nodded and began signing again.

_Of course_, he gestured as he smiled. He reached out and took the cup of tea that Inara offered, and stood. _But if they are so close, what would make you leave?_

"Uncertainty," Inara answered after a moment, and they sat down at the chairs around her table. "The captain and I have an . . . agreement. A business arrangement, really. Our relationship has been straining that arrangement."

_You and he are lovers? _Haroldington asked, and she shook her head quickly.

"No!" she said, and then smiled with embarrassment at the outburst. "No, its not like that. But there have been _developments_ that have put our respective business at odds."

_Inara, _Haroldington signed, leaning a bit closer and grinning. _You don't have to be so defensive. I know how you've spoken about Captain Reynolds before. I'm not senile . . . yet._

Inara smiled back, considering what he'd indicated. He was more correct than she cared to admit, but how much of his words would she herself admit were true?

"This . . . relationship, it . . . creates complications," she admitted. "A Companion's life is difficult enough."

_I wouldn't say it was that difficult, _he mused with a smile, and raised his cup of tea to her. _After all, lonely men like me are easy enough to deal with._

"Maybe," she replied with a smile. "I've met some who have been insufferable."

_Well, tell me about them, _he signaled_. We've got plenty of time left._

* * *

For half a second, Mal considered simply denying he knew anything about the whole mess. However, one look in Obrin's eyes told him the _hun dan _knew far too much about him, his crew, and especially River.

Mal looked down at the image, into River's empty eyes, and then turned his gaze back up toward Obrin's face. His mind raced with the possible outcomes, but every one of them either went against the very fiber of his soul, or ended bloody.

Well, he decided, if it came down to it . . . .

"Why?" Zoë asked as Mal considered his options. Obrin glanced to her, and shrugged.

"It should be obvious," he replied. "River Tam is a critical strategic asset, as well as a dangerous weapon. What she is capable of, and what she knows, makes her-"

_"Suo-shee shiong-mung duk kwong-run," _Mal hissed, cutting Obrin off. His voice dripped with venom, and he glared laser bolts at his old commander.

"What?" the Colonel replied, caught off-guard by Mal's vulgar, furious outburst.

"River is not a _gorram_ weapon," Mal said, leaning forward. "She's a girl. A girl whose brain has been burned out by men who wanted to twist a child into a killing machine." His fists clenched, knuckles going white.

"Men just like _you_."

Obrin's eyes widened, and he stood up, face going red at the comparison.

"I am not the same as those Alliance sons of-"

"No, you're _exactly_ the same, Lee," Mal replied, rising as well. "You see a weapon, a tool, where you should see a girl who just wants to be a person!"

Obrin stared back for a long while, and his grimace became a harsh frown. He shook his head.

"You're a fool, Mal," he snarled. "You don't see the importance this has for the Browncoats? For the Independents?" He waved a hand in the air. "We could make the lives of every one of those men and women who died worth it, with this one-"

"With this one what?" Mal snarled. "One girl? One girl whose mind was torn apart by what they did to her? One girl that didn't deserve any of this, and doesn't want it?"

"Its not about what she _wants_, Mal," Obrin said, shaking his head. "Its about what _we_ need."

The Captain stared back at Obrin, and saw a different man than he once knew. A moment later, a flash of memory cut through his brain, and Mal remembered a moment just like this, months back, in his own cargo bay.

"Is this how far we've come?" Mal asked, staring Obrin in the eyes. "We forgot everything we fought for? What are we now, Lee? What are _we . . . now_?"

"We're soldiers, Mal," Obrin said, firm and quiet. "And this war isn't over."

"You stopped being a soldier when you decided to stoop this low, Lee," Mal hissed. Obrin shook his head again.

"That's why you were only a sergeant, Mal," he whispered. "You're always worried about the flesh and blood, the men and the women and the _faces_. You've never looked past them and seen the big picture."

"Then I'm glad I never got brass, Colonel," Mal hissed. "That's why I'm a _captain_. I look out for me and mine. _All_ of mine."

"You're a reasonable man, Mal," Obrin said, calming. "We need the secrets in her brain to help liberate this system from the Alliance. And her psychic powers would help-"

_"No." _Mal's voice carried a strength and a weight in it that Obrin couldn't deny.

"No?" Obrin asked, exhaling.

"River is _on my crew_," Mal said, his tone giving that statement all the meaning it required. It was the same tone he'd used when he chose to make his stand at Serenity Valley, and the same tone he used on Haven when he declared his intentions to pass through Reaver space.

Obrin stared back, and sighed, his shoulders sagging with exhaustion. He rapped the table three times in rapid succession, and looked back up to Mal and Zoë.

The _zip-click_ of a dozen firearms charging up filled the room as Obrin's bodyguards turned to face the group, weapons in hand.

"Well, in that case," the Colonel said, taking a step back, "I'll have to try something else."

"Coercion," Zoë said, cold and calm, looking around the room, her hands under the table. "Use us to bring River to you."

"Very smart, corporal," Obrin said with a nod. "Now, stand up and let us relieve you of your weapons."

"You sure you want to do this, Obrin?" Mal asked, looking around at the assortment of ugly moving towards them. He kept his hand away from his sidearm, but he didn't need to anyway. Zoë, still sitting, was tensing up, the way she always did right before the shooting started.

"How else am I going to get what I need from you, Mal?" Obrin replied, taking a few more wise steps back.

"You're running an awful risk, you know that," Mal said. "My crew ain't the types to leave me behind. Fella named Niska can attest to that."

"I know," Obrin said, his smile returning. "I'm _counting_ on it."

"He's going to use us to draw River to him," Zoë said, and Mal let out a quiet chuckle.

"You want to bring . . . bring _her_ your way?" Mal asked, and he let out a quick chuckle. "Obrin, you're off your rocker. You really want that girl mad at you? I know a whole mess of Reavers what made that mistake- "

_"Eta karoom na smech," _Obrin interrupted, and smiled. Mal's expression dropped back to blank seriousness.

"Well now," Mal said, his voice dull and serious. "That changes the vector a mite bit." Where the hell had he gotten River's knock-out phrase?

"Zoë," Mal hissed, looking down at his second. She didn't look back; instead, he saw her mouth give the tiniest twitch.

"Sir?" she whispered.

"I do believe we are running out of options here," he said, and she nodded.

"I agree."

"So, do what we always do?"

"Run away, sir?"

"Yep. Draw!"

* * *

Book looked away from Lancaster for a long while, thinking over the gravity of his friend's words. Lancaster wasn't a man to embellish the facts; if he meant this data needle could bring down the Alliance, it _could_.

"Can I?" Book asked, holding his hand out, and Lancaster nodded.

"Be very careful with that," he said, handing Book the needle. "I made a copy and hid it, but we don't want that to fall in the wrong hands. I think the Alliance detected-"

He was cut off as Book grabbed his shoulder.

"Lancaster, get down!"

The words were barely out of Book's mouth, and he was just starting to pull his friend toward the ground when Lancaster's head was perforated, a neat hole cutting through his skull right where the laser dot had rested an instant earlier.

Sniper. Low-caliber round, probably subsonic, definitely silenced.

Book stared at Lancaster's body as it toppled over for half a second, and then jolted to his feet. He dove forward into the crowd, and heard a scream behind him. A woman dropped to the ground, her arm erupting with blood as the unseen sniper fired again. Almost immediately, the entire crowd erupted into pandemonium as they saw the body and the screaming woman.

Book knew how to use chaos to his benefit. He plunged into the crowd, disappearing among the people.

* * *

_"Principal eliminated,"_ Gerard called. _"I have the body confirmed."_

"Do you have the package?" the Operative asked, searching the crowd with his scope. The other man was already gone, vanishing into the crowd.

That man . . . his face was familiar.

_"Negative, I don't have it,"_ Gerard replied.

_"I think he passed it to the second man,"_ Divas reported. _"He handed something to him."_

"Confirm that," the Operative replied. "Find the second man. Take him down, and make sure you get the package."

_"Copy."_

* * *

There were twelve men, plus Obrin, all with their weapons trained on Mal and Zoë. Neither of the pair had a weapon out or ready.

Silence hovered in the air for a moment after Mal told Zoë to draw. She hadn't moved, and there was an awkward moment of hesitation as he looked back down to her.

"Zoë, are you going to, um, draw?" he asked, hand hovering near his sidearm.

There was a clink of metal on the floor, and a small cylinder rolled from Zoë's feet toward the goons.

"Just a matter of timing, sir," she replied, and dropped, covering her face. Mal did the same, diving behind the table, and the flash bomb Zoë had unobtrusively armed, dropped, and kicked toward Obrin's men detonated.

Mal heard cries and shouts of pain from Obrin's troops as the bomb stunned and disoriented them, releasing a combination of intense, deafening sound, a brilliant flash of light, and a high-frequency blast that dizzied everyone in the area of effect. Mal and Zoë were a bit too close to the blast themselves, and Zoë stumbled back, while Mal clumsily threw over the table they had been seated behind. He grabbed his second, pulling her with him as he ran for the doors to the restaurant.

Mal got a couple of steps in that direction before Zoë tugged back, and an instant later, two more men in plain clothes rushed into the entrance to the diner, handguns out. They started firing, rounds shattering a condiment bottle directly in front of Mal and throwing up chunks of wooden shrapnel. Mal snapped his pistol up and fired, his aim disoriented and off-balance, but managing to wing one man. The other kept firing.

"Kitchen!" Zoë yelled into Mal's ringing ears, and he nodded. They ducked below the newcomers' line of fire and scrambled in the opposite direction, which unfortunately led right into the middle of the rest of Obrin's goons. One rose up, shaking his head and pointing a shotgun at them. He opened his mouth to yell something - probably an order to stop - but Zoë ensured that whatever he planned to say would forever remain a mystery. A single quick shot blew out his throat, and she pumped her stubby weapon's action, pivoting to fire a second shot into another man's gut as he stood. Mal shoulder-blocked a third as he tried to get up off his knees, and leapt over the dropped man.

Even with most of Obrin's goons still stunned and disoriented, Mal knew he couldn't fight these numbers. Instead, he kicked down the doors to the kitchen, just as rounds slammed into the wall on either side of him. He heard Zoë blast off another shot, and then he was inside the kitchen, the walls all clean whiteness and the counters shiny, stainless metal.

Gunfire greeted him as he entered, and Mal dropped to his knees, sliding behind a counter as two more men sprayed submachinegun fire at him. He dropped to his stomach, noting the counter was free-standing, and between its legs he spotted the shooters' feet. Mal fired two quick shots, taking one man's ankles, and the other dove behind what looked like a big baking oven, out of Mal's line of fire.

Zoë rushed into the kitchen behind him, firing another shot from her lever-action, and they quickly switched positions, Mal pivoting to cover her back while she took the lead, neither of them having to say anything. She moved toward the back of the kitchen, Mal right behind her, and he fired another shot at the man behind the oven to keep him behind cover.

A shotgun blast ripped at them from the kitchen entrance, and one of Obrin's men moved into the room, pumping the weapon's action as he lined up another blast. Mal fired a snap shot that hit the man in the knee, shattering it and sending him toppling to the floor. A moment later, Mal heard Zoë's boot crash through a door, and he glanced back to see her step out into an alley behind the restaurant.

Actually, it wasn't an alley, Mal realized, but a rear-access service corridor. Well, fine by him; it lacked people shooting at him.

"Which way, sir?" Zoë asked as Mal slammed the door behind them.

"Down, back to the ship!" he ordered, and took the lead again, Zoë sliding onto their rear and covering them as they moved up the corridor. As they started running, Mal reached down to his pocket and pulled out his radio earpiece. He thumbed it on as he ran.

"Wash! Wash, do you read me?" he called. "Come in!" Beside him, Zoë did the same with her own. As they hurried up the passage, Mal could only hear white noise over the comm.

"Are we out of range?" he said. "Wash! You reading this?"

"Sounds like . . . " Zoë came to a halt at an intersection.

"Like what?" Mal asked s she peeked around the corner.

"Jamming, sir," she said. "Obrin's jamming us."

"How did he-" Mal began, and then the wall beside him exploded. Loosing a mighty curse, he spun around and fired a round behind him, in the direction of the gunshot. The offending shooter recoiled, the round hitting him in the shin, and two of his friends behind him opened fire.

"Left!" Mal yelled, rolling around the corner behind Zoë, firing as he went.

* * *

The crowd was not helping with the headache, nor was the bright sunlight and the distant but powerful roar and screech of ship engines. Simon kept a step behind Kaylee, wincing in the clear, brilliant morning light. Thankfully, she was holding his hand, either out of affection or to guide him along or both.

"How far did we get from the ship last night?" he asked as they weaved through the crowds. The incessant press of noise was growing slowly more intense and painful as the teeming masses of multicolored humanity swirled around him.

"Well," Kaylee said, thinking. "We hit two different restaurants, and a walk in this park place we're in now, and then you found that nice hotel about three klicks from the spaceport . . . ."

"We went for a walk through here?" he asked, and he heard her laugh over the voices surrounding them. It hurt to hear her, but the sound was pleasant enough to bear.

"It was a lot less crowded last night," she replied. "If you hadn't hit the bottle so hard you mighta remembered some of it."

"I shouldn't have drunk so much," Simon muttered. "Need to keep a clear head . . . ."

"Well, River did tell ya to get drunk, didn't she?" Kaylee asked, and he grimaced. Her smile faded, replaced with a frown. "What?"

Guilt filled Simon as they continued through the press of people, and Kaylee started to slow. Last night was . . . he shook his head, even though it hurt to do so.

"I am such an idiot," he said, rubbing his temples. "And irresponsible. So _gorram_ . . . ."

"What are you talking about?" she asked, her hands resting on his shoulders.

"Leaving River alone to indulge like this," he replied, looking back up to her. "I shouldn't have left her."

"Simon," Kaylee said, her voice echoing her disapproval. "How many times I gotta tell you to loosen up a bit?"

"No, its . . . ." Simon said, head shaking again. "She's in bad shape, and I can't be-"

"Simon," she interrupted, her tone now more serious. He looked up at her, meeting her eyes. "You ain't got to shoulder this burden all by yourself, you know."

"She's my sister," he replied, as if that was all that needed to be said. To his surprise, Kaylee shook her head.

"Not just yours, now," she said. "Ya'll are family, you understand." She tugged on his hand, and started pulling him into the crowd. He reluctantly followed, though now they were moving side-by-side.

"'sides," she continued, "You wanted to spend more time with me now, remember?"

"Yes, but . . . I was worried about her," he mused, shaking his head again as they walked. "That's why I was so . . . I didn't want to leave in the first place last night. Leaving River alone when she's this badly hurt, it just went against everything."

"But she told you she was alright," Kaylee added, and he sighed, nodding.

"In her way," he said. "I still . . . you're right, you know."

"'bout what?"

"Taking the burden all to myself," Simon said. "I've been so focused on her for so long its hard to pull away, and after what happened to her on that ship, I . . . . really, I should be there now."

"She's fine," Kaylee said, dismissing his worries with a sunny grin. "She's got the Cap'n and Zoë watchin' her, plus Wash and Book."

"At least Jayne isn't there," Simon added. His head was throbbing again, as the noise of the crowd was growing. "I don't want to imagine what might happen if River and Jayne were left alone, in her condition . . . ."

"Oh, Jayne's a big nothin' now," Kaylee replied, pulling ahead as the crowd started pushing toward them more aggressively. The traffic was now starting to head in the opposite direction of where they were headed. "But the rest of the crew's gonna take good care of her. We're seein' to that."

"Well, Wash and-"

"Book," Kaylee said suddenly, and Simon nodded, even as someone bumped into him.

"Yeah, Book would-"

"No," Kaylee said, pointing. Her voice was hard to hear over the yells of the people all around them, some confused, others fearful. Simon winced, trying to make sense of it all, but as he followed Kaylee's finger, he spotted someone shoving through the crowd in their general direction, who looked like . . . .

"Shepherd?" Simon said, confused. Book was keeping low in the crowd, but he was still visible to someone who knew where to look. Unlike the people around him, who were running or moving about in confusion and fear, Book was sliding through the crowd with definite purpose, looking in all directions as he slipped between people.

"What's he doin' here?" Kaylee asked, smiling eagerly, and she started waving her other hand as she moved through the crowd. Simon suddenly felt wrong, a tremor of unease running through him as he heard Kaylee calling Book's name.

"Is he running from something?" he started to ask, but even as he spoke, Kaylee was moving into Book's path.

"Shepherd!" she called, and the priest glanced toward her. Simon came up short, dread hammering him as he saw the shocked and terrified expression on the Shepherd's face. He started to move away immediately, back into the crowd. Kaylee took a step after him, and then stopped, reading the expression on his face.

"What the good _gorram_ is he-" she began, and then Book came to a sudden halt, hands rising up in a flash of motion, and Simon caught a flash of metal from the crowd.

* * *

_"He's changing direction,"_ Gerard said. _"I've got him."_

"Tracking you," the Operative said. "Looking for a shot." His voice was tight, angry. He hated it when civilians got involved with government business; it made it harder to clean things up afterward, and it looked sloppy.

_"Closing in, stand by,"_ Gerard said. _"Aves is with me. We've got him."_

"I think I see him," the Operative added. He frowned. "He's looking away at someone else. Looks like-" The Operative froze, even as the target began to move away quickly. He zoomed in, and his jaw dropped a fraction. This was impossible. The chances . . . .

It was face he'd memorized, one of the most important targets in the entire system, right in front of him.

"Team," he breathed. "I've got a visual on _Simon Tam_. Repeat, _I see Simon Tam_. Confirm."

He peered through the scope, and listened for a response. A couple of seconds passed, and he frowned. His team wasn't responding. Instead, he was only getting static over the comm.

"Team, report," he hissed. "Anyone there?"

Nothing.

The Operative considered shifting aim toward the principal target, but he realized that he couldn't lose Simon Tam. He'd just lucked onto one of the most wanted fugitives in the Alliance database . . . .

_" . . amming . . . ."_

"Repeat?" the Operative said, keeping his scope locked on the face of the fugitive. He caught sight of a woman nearby, who he was following, with reddish-brown hair.

_"Jammed,"_ someone said, his voice uncertain. _"Don . . . here its . . . oming . . . ."_

"Pursue the principal," he ordered, his mind racing as he sighted Tam. He couldn't let this one get away. There was no way someone this critical would be allowed to escape. They'd never get this chance again, but how to capture him without letting the principal target and the data he was carrying slip away? Both were of utmost importance.

The Operative knew he had to stop Tam, but how? He couldn't risk a leg shot. He could miss and hit a vital organ, or he could bleed out. But how to-

He saw Simon grab the hand of the woman, who came to a halt, and a sudden, simple realization struck him. With a smile, the Operative sighted his target, wondering how he could have missed such an obvious solution.

* * *

"Girl's gone nuts," Jayne muttered, crossing his burly arms as he looked down at River. She was curled up on the couch in the common room, no longer shaking, but staring blankly at the floor, arms wrapped around her knees and fingers tangled together.

The mercenary was standing by the stairs running up to the upper decks, frowning in thought as he stared at River. Beside him, Wash ran his hands through his hair, not sure what to do.

"You got any ruttin' clue what she was sayin'?" Jayne asked, to which Wash shrugged.

"Steel Condor," he replied. "Doesn't ring a bell."

"Sounds like a codename or somethin'," Jayne mused, scratching his bearded chin. "Ain't knowin' what it means."

"Duress code, maybe?" Wash said, crossing his arms. "Maybe some kind of emergency code? Whatever it is, its got her spooked bad."

"He comes with honey and smiles, but wants darkness," River mumbled from across the room. "They don't welcome it. He's unhappy now."

"Yeah, that's real sensical," Jayne muttered. Wash, on the other hand, shook his head, trying to puzzle out her meaning.

"She's trying to say something," he said, and Jayne snorted.

"Or she's just jabberin' nonsense, like always," he replied.

"I can figure this out," Wash said quickly. "I can understand you, or the Captain when you're both blind drunk. I can guess what's she's trying to say."

"So, tell me, what's she mumblin' on, Mister Mind Readin' Expert?" Jayne demanded.

"The three heads are in the needle," River said, slowly and carefully. "In the hands of God, the keys to the gates. He wants them . . . ."

"I _think_ that River's sensing something is wrong," Wash pointed out. "And if she is, then that means the others could be in trouble. She hasn't been wrong about it before."

"Yeah, and just 'cause I never miss with Boo don't mean I'm always gonna hit," Jayne replied, skeptical. "What if she's just gone batty, huh?"

"You don't trust her," Wash said, his words not a question. Jayne scowled.

"The girl's ruttin' loony," he replied. "Was crazy even 'fore Niska got his claws in her, an' I know what he did to her. You do too, I reckon." Wash stopped, glanced down toward the deck, and fought back the rather savage memories that brought up.

Without continuing the quiet argument, Wash moved across the room. Jayne grumbled and followed him as he sat down across from the mumbling girl.

"Hey, River," he said, raising his eyebrows questioningly. She paused, and then raised her head, but didn't meet his eyes.

"You don't trust me," River said. It was the most coherent thing he'd heard out her in the last hour.

"No, its not that," Wash said, smiling. "I just . . . River, hon, you're not making any sense is all."

"Needles and firing vectors," she said, closing her eyes. "They're hunting. They've been betrayed. It repeats in her mind. Sight alignment, enemy, condor, steel condor."

"River, I don't understand," Wash said, reaching out to touch her. His hand brushed her shoulder, and after a few seconds River looked up. He met her eyes for an instant, and then they scrunched up tight once more.

"Two of them," she said. "Two without names. One who doesn't have a name, and the other whose name is nameless. They stalk the press, needles and edges, hunting . . . ."

"She ain't gonna start makin' sense anytime soon," Jayne added, glancing toward the infirmary. "What's that stuff Doc uses to fix her brain?"

River's eyes opened, and she looked to Wash again as Jayne moved into the infirmary.

"Buzzing," she whispered. Her eyes flicked away. "Drowning out the words."

"Huh?" Wash asked, and she looked back to him, shaking her head. She shook a moment, closing her eyes again, and when they opened, they seemed clearer, more focused.

"Call them," she said after a second. "Call them, before it gets lost!"

"Call who?"

"Everyone," River breathed, and her eyes lost focus again. "Everyone, hurry!"

Wash exhaled, and a sudden flash of clarity hit him. He shot to his feet as Jayne remerged from the infirmary, grumbling.

"Where you headed?" he asked as the pilot started up the stairs.

"Going to give Mal and Zoë a call," Wash explained. "Make sure nothing's happened." Jayne frowned, glanced to River, and then nodded. Skeptical as he was, he had his suspicions, though mired in his blunt practicality. Wash disappeared up the stairs, and Jayne hovered nearby, watching as River went back to staring at the floor.

A long minute passed, with only the distant thrumming of the ship's systems sounding in the background. Jayne moved over to one of the chairs, flopping down into it and keeping an eye on River, uncertain as to what she'd do next. He slid a finger down to his belt and checked his revolver, just in case; he didn't _despise_ the girl as he used to - hard, after all they'd gone through together - but she made him nervous. Crazy folk always made him nervous, never rational, and triply so when they were in their ruttin' crazy moods.

She kept staring at the deck, eyes not moving, and he wondered what was going through that insane head of hers. Jayne leaned forward a bit.

"What're you seein'?" he asked. She didn't respond for a few moments.

"Panic," she whispered. "Hurricane. Chaos." She reached up with one hand and started fiddling with her hair. "He's there. I see . . . .

She sat up straight, eyes widening in shock and horror.

"Simon! Kaylee! He sees them! He's hunting them!"

"What?" Jayne replied immediately, standing up, and then River froze. Her mouth dropped open, she twitched, and then let out a horrified scream.

He bolted across the room just as she fell forward off the couch, nearly banging her knees on the floor. His beefy arms scooped River up as she continued screaming, and Jayne dropped her back on the couch.

"Hey, calm down!" Jayne yelled, and grabbed her by the shoulders as she curled up. "_Gorram_ it girl, calm the hell down!" A couple of seconds later, the scream died out, River gasping for breath and shivering.

"What the hell was that about?" Jayne demanded. She continued shaking for a few more seconds, eyes wide and unfocused, and then they suddenly locked onto his.

_"Kaylee," _she breathed, and Jayne felt a deadly cold weight in his gut at the weak, pained way she spoke that name.

* * *

"Shepherd!" Book froze up, heart stopping, and fervently wished that this wasn't the case.

The chances of something so horrifically bad occurring were so marginal as to make Book slide to a halt for an instant, not believing in how bad his luck could have been. He looked across the mass of people pushing away from the shooting site, and the dreaded confirmation hammered home as he saw Kaylee pushing through the crowd, waving toward him with an innocent, happy smile.

And behind her, he saw Simon.

Book didn't respond or even acknowledge her presence. To do that would draw attention to her, and that would draw attention to Simon, and if these men were who he feared-

He was moving away, trying to disappear into the crowd, when he caught movement too close to him, too purposeful for a frightened bystander. He caught the comparatively calm gait, the focused and unswerving steps straight toward him, and the flash of light glinting off metal.

His hands crossed quickly as the weapon jabbed for his gut, and Book shoved the man's arm down with all the force he could manage. The plain-clothed man's eyes widened with surprise, even as Book's left hand clasped around his wrist. The Shepherd twisted his wrist back, sending shooting agony up his foe's arm, and he dropped the weapon he was holding. Book's other arm was already arcing around underneath his opponent's hand, and caught the device - a pneumatic needle injector, with a thumb trigger on the side opposite the needle itself.

Before his opponent could react any further, Book snapped the needle up into his chest and depressed the trigger. There was a tiny hiss as the injector pumped its contents into the man's body, and Book released him, letting the man drop to the pavement. Book glanced back to where Simon and Kaylee were standing, and saw their shock and surprise.

Understandable; in a single second, he'd disarmed and incapacitated an attacker who had come out of nowhere.

"Run!" he shouted, just as he spotted a flicker of motion behind him. Book ducked, spinning away, his muscles still remembering the countless hours of combat training from long ago, and he spotted another glint of steel. A second needle injector whizzed past from another man, and Book lashed out with his leg as the weapon cut past. His foot struck the back of his attacker's knee, and the man stumbled forward, shin banging against the pavement as Book rose.

The attacker tried to twist about to strike again, but Book was already spinning around behind him, and caught his wrist as he struck. He pulled and twisted, yanking the man's arm around his back, and as he cried out in pain, the injector slipped from slack fingers and into Book's own hand. It immediately plunged into the man's lower back, and the preacher let the injector do its work. He stepped back as his foe flopped to the ground, and spun, scanning the crowd for any more attackers.

Then he heard a cry of shock and pain, and he knew the voice even as he whirled.

Simon was bent over, grabbing Kaylee as she dropped toward the pavement, blood covering his hands and horrified disbelief on his face. Her eyes were wide and confused, and he saw crimson pouring over her own fingers - _her_ blood.

The Shepherd launched himself through the crowd toward her, even as he saw two more men, calm and purposeful, striding toward them with injectors in hand.

* * *

The Operative nodded as he looked through the scope. It had been a clean shot. He didn't care if she lived or died, as long she kept his targets occupied.

He swept his sights over his prey as he shoved through the crowd, and his finger settled over the trigger, waiting for the one clean shot he'd need to end this.

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** Aw, _hell_ no.

Well, the action's picking up. Expect some fight scenes in the future as our heroes rush to escape the traps they've been caught in. Also, as I said before, Inara is going to play an important role in this story, though not immediately.

A very good point was brought up in a recent review about River's knock-out phrase, and how it could be a dangerous vulnerability for an assassin like her, and I agree that it is. However, I suspect that River was "incomplete" when Simon rescued her from the Academy, and her training and programming was unfinished. I personally think that her knock-out phrase was an internal security measure for use within the Acadmey in case she escaped, and if she had been "finished" she probably would have been reprogrammed with other codes between assignments.

As far as this story is concerned, River only has one knock-out phrase, programmed into her before Simon freed her, which is one of her major weaknesses - in addition to her insanity and her fragile body. Of course, just because she has a single knock-out phrase, it doesn't mean she doesn't have _other_ behavioral codes programmed into her brain...

Until next chapter . . . .


	19. Chapter Six: Hunt

_**Chapter Six: Hunt**_

"Okay. Plan. Are we still getting shot at?"

Two rounds slammed into the wall beside Mal's head, deforming and shattering concrete. Shards of ceramic and puffs of dust flew past his face as he recoiled.

"Yes, sir, we are," Zoë confirmed.

"Just checking."

Mal looked up and down the stairwell they were crouched in, and saw assorted amounts of ugly gathered on the steps below. The occasional gunshot rang out, slamming into the metal stairs or the walls near their spot on the landing.

"We do not have luck with stairwells," Mal remarked, squeezing off a shot at the goon below, who ducked back into cover. Immediately, a flurry of shots hammered the landing beside Mal, and he jerked back.

"They're playing rough for men who want us alive," Zoë remarked, and Mal nodded.

"I'm guessin' Obrin's not taking our refusal too well," Mal added, checking the corridor they'd come from. He poked his head out and then leapt back, the doorframe splintering under enemy fire. "They're still behind us."

"What was that about a plan, sir?" Zoë asked, sending a blast down the hallway.

"I vote we keep running away," Mal replied, firing his pistol down the stairs. "Maybe some hiding. Possibly cowering and such."

"Which way?" Zoë asked as she pumped her lever action and fired again. A howl of agony came back down the hallway as her target sprawled on the floor.

"Up," Mal said, glancing up the stairs, and then taking cover as a barrage tore apart the wall beside him and ripped into the ceiling.

"Weren't we going down?" she asked, and Mal pointed.

"Have a chat with our pals down thataway about that," he said, and she nodded. Instead of speaking, she pumped her stubby longarm once more and fired again.

"Ready?" Mal said, tensing as a stream of bullets cut past. She nodded again. "Go!"

He popped out of cover and fired several rapid shots, peppering the stairs below with the rest of his pistol's cartridge. Obrin's thugs fled to cover as rounds ricocheted all around them, sparks flying throughout the stairwell. As the report of his sidearm filled the narrow confines of the stairwell, Zoë's boots hammered the metal stairs as she ran past him, rifle up and sweeping the upper landing. Mal ducked back, reloading his pistol's cartridge, and gunfire slashed up past him.

"Next floor clear!" Zoë yelled as he ran up behind her, and Mal chased her into the hallways beyond. He spun around, slamming the door behind him and throwing a locking bar down on the inside.

"That won't stop them for long," Zoë said, sweeping the corridor they stood in.

"Long enough to lose 'em in the crowd," Mal replied, and they started jogging up the hallway.

"The crowd that's lacking in heavy weaponry?" Zoë asked, gesturing with her weapon, and Mal shrugged.

"This is Persephone," he replied. "The general folk here have more guns than the Feds."

* * *

The crowd pushed against him, and he pushed back just as hard. They were panicking, the sort of mindless rioting he'd seen before, irrational fear driving these people away from a source of danger. He knew he wouldn't have much time before they dispersed too much to cover his escape, or the escape of others.

He had told Lee his name was "Nemo," which was true enough. Of course he knew it was an alias, but that was fine; Obrin could dig as deep as he liked into his associate's past, but it would do him no good. There was nothing to find. Nemo slipped between panicking, terrified civilians, his eyes open for his objective.

There was a flash of movement, a cry of shocked disbelief reaching over the crowd, and he spotted-

Oh, _no_. He knew who his objective's associates were, but hadn't expected any of them to be present as well. And worst still, Nemo realized, shoving against the crowd with renewed ferocity, one of those associates was Simon Tam. If who he expected was here, it meant a world of trouble for everyone involved if they realized one of the Tam siblings was present.

He launched past a bulky man in swirling robes, and then caught another glimpse of movement as he drove forward - two men moving against the crowd as well, about twenty meters to his right, closing on Tam and the girl he was cradling. His eyes narrowed as he realized she had been shot, and recognized the delaying tactic immediately, and from that knew exactly who he was dealing with.

The elderly priest - Book - was rising and rushing toward Tam, having spotted the two approaching members of the snatch team. Between the legs of the fleeing mass of mankind, Nemo saw the sprawled bodies of two more men, doubtless the rest of the standard four-man unit.

Book shouted something unclear over the din of the crowd, and Tam looked up just as the snatch team drew closer, pneumatic injectors in their hands. The Shepherd sprang past Tam, intercepting one of them men, who whirled to face him. There was a clash of arms and hands as the two men struggled, even as the second broke into a charge at Simon. The doctor looked up at his attacker, and shot up to his feet, bracing to intercept and try and fight him off. Brave, Nemo thought, and in that instant his attacker drew close and jabbed out with the injector.

It rang against metal as Nemo lashed out, drawing the blade he had concealed beneath his cloak and intercepting the injector with a quick, clean parry. The attacker recoiled, sliding into an automatic defensive stance, caught off-guard by the unexpected parry. A knife slid out of his sleeve as Nemo closed, not giving him time to recover. Metal rang and scraped against metal as he caught the intruder's blade and deflected it, and then jabbed out with his injector.

Nemo sidestepped forward around the jabbing arm, his blade hand still keeping the knife pinned. The injector cut past, and his left hand flew down, catching the jabbing wrist and pushing it up and away. Nemo disengaged his blade with a deft twist, flipping it over as he ducked, and slammed the pommel into his foe's gut. The man doubled over, and Nemo whirled around in the opposite direction, stabbing his blade behind him as he spun. It slid up into his foe's chest and tore apart his lungs.

The intruder ripped his weapon free just as he saw Book twist and break his opponent's weapon hand with a seemingly slight pull, and then stab him with his own injector. As he dropped, Nemo turned toward Tam, who was staring in abject shock at what had just happened.

"Get her up!" Nemo hissed, injecting a deep growl into his voice that would make it hard to recognize. "This way!"

"Who are you?" Simon demanded, even as he scooped up the brown-haired girl - Kaylee, if he remembered her name. It felt as if he had read the reports a lifetime ago.

"A friend of Malcolm Reynolds," Nemo replied, glancing to Book as he hurried over, ready to intervene. The old priest frowned, looking into the hood that covered Nemo's face, and slowed.

"How do you-" Simon said, but was cut off as Kaylee groaned in pain, blood still running from her leg wound.

"We have to get her to safety," Book hissed, and Nemo nodded. Their eyes met, and a moment's insight passed between the two of them.

"But who is-" Simon was still saying, to which Book grabbed his shoulder.

"We don't have time, boy!" he ordered. "We need someplace secure."

"Anywhere inside a building," Nemo added. "An alley, this way!" Someplace they could watch the entrances or exits, or even better, call for medical help. If it was who he suspected was running this operation, he wouldn't be requisitioning support from local military forces if he could help it, which meant they might - just might - have a clear shot with an ambulance.

Simon lifted Kaylee and followed Nemo and Book, uncertain but trusting the priest's apparent judgment regarding the newcomer. That was good, because Nemo suspected that if Tam had seen his face, that trust would have been far, far longer in coming.

* * *

They disappeared into the crowd.

The Operative snarled, sweeping the faces, tracking their position as best he could, but the best he could manage was spotting a disturbance here and there was Tam ran with the girl in hand, the other two men fanning out ahead of them. They weren't moving in a tight, easily-tracked group like he'd expected.

One, or both of them, were professionals.

Well, his own men were professionals as well, and they knew what to do in case of jamming or a loss of communications. He spotted at least one team pushing through the crowd, trying to intercept their targets, and knew they would carry out their mission as best they could without his direction.

Still, he couldn't allow for the possibility that Tam could get back to whatever ship he'd taken to get here, or allow the man with the leaked information to escape. They would doubtless both be headed for their own vessels.

Lowering his rifle, the Operative frowned and turned, jogging toward the sleek, open-topped hovercar he used to get up here. He signaled his pilot, a stocky war veteran named Hall, to fire it up as he got closer.

"Something wrong, sir?" Hall asked as he clambered into the vehicle.

"We're being jammed, and the principal is escaping," he replied. "Get me into the air, above the jamming."

"Sir," Hall acknowledged, and fired up the hovercar's engines. As it launched into the air, the spires dropping below, the Operative considered his options.

Local police and Alliance military were out of the question. If the enemy had jamming tech able to drown out even his top-of-the-line gear, then that meant they were well-organized. He didn't know who was jamming the area or why, but he had his suspicions.

"Browncoats," he muttered. He knew the remnants of the Browncoats had some operations on Persephone, and there were suspicions they had people or informants inside the local police force. Commandeering law enforcement or even military police would alert them that something was going on, and the very last thing that the Alliance needed right now was the Browncoats finding out about Simon or River Tam.

But there were still other options he had.

The hovercar continued to ascend, and as it did so, incoming radio transmissions began to come in over the speaker. With a nod, the Operative had Hall stop the hovercar, and he picked up his radio.

"I need an open channel with Port Control," he ordered, and Hall got to work. At the very least, the Operative could keep Tam and the other fugitive grounded.

* * *

_"Wash!" _

Jayne rumbled up the crew corridor, yelling the little man's name. _Serenity's_ pilot was in the cockpit, glaring at the comm panel like it had betrayed him. He flipped switches, he turned dials, he hammered away at the keyboard, and tapped at the monitor, his movements punctuated by various curses. As Jayne entered the bridge, about to yell the little man's name again in case he hadn't heard his un-subtle approach, Wash grabbed the radio speaker again and held it so close to his mouth it looked like he was about to swallow it.

"Captain!" he shouted. "Captain? Mal! _Zoë! Gorram_ it, pick up!"

"Hey, Wash!" Jayne growled, moving up behind him.

"What?" Wash snapped looking up.

"Get this bird airborne, we got trouble!" Jayne said, and Wash grunted.

"You're telling me," he replied. "I can't raise Zoë or Mal."

"Worse'n that," Jayne muttered.

"Worse?" Wash replied, raising his eyebrows. "I'm getting no signal from them. Not a ping off their comms, not even an echo from my waves, just white noise!"

Jayne stared back, not sure what that meant.

"Signal's gettin' interfered is all," the mercenary said. "Anyway, that's-"

"Its not interference," Wash replied. "I would be getting a bounce-back from the signal if it was interference or comm static. This is a signal catcher we're dealing with."

"Signal catcher," Jayne echoed, eyes widening. That meant . . . . "Jamming. Someone's jammin' 'em?"

"Got to be," Wash replied. "Military-grade jamming, which means-"

"You got in touch with Doc or Kaylee?" Jayne demanded, and Wash shook his head.

"No, but if there's jamming, they might be in trouble, and-"

"_Gorram_ right!" Jayne growled. "Kaylee's been shot!" Wash blinked.

"What?" he breathed, shock and disbelief shooting through his face, the latter winning out after a moment. "How - how do you know?"

"Feel it," came a tiny voice from the bridge entrance, and Wash looked over, to see River standing in the connection between bridge and crew corridor. Her fingers were clasped together, anxiety and what looked like pain on her face.

"He shot her," River said after a second, trying to stabilize herself. "He . . . _hurt_ . . . Kaylee."

"Who?" Wash said, standing up. "What's going on?"

"_Gorram_ girl started pitchin' a fit over Kaylee after you left," Jayne said. "I ain't sure if she's all there, but she sounds all lucy in the head a bit."

"Lucid," River corrected.

"Whatever, look!" Jayne said, pointing at Wash. "We gotta get after 'em. If there's a signal catcher and Kaylee's been shot, they're gonna need us, _dong ma_!"

"Right," Wash replied, spinning around and dropping into the pilot's seat. "I'm getting us airborne right . . . _right_ . . . ." His eyes flicked over the consoles, and several angry red lights winked at him.

"Oh, son of a _bitch_," he muttered. "You . . . do not _say_ that right now!"

"What?" Jayne asked, cutting across the bridge. There was an angry red flashing coming from the monitors and displays.

"Clipped the wings," River muttered, almost inaudible, and Jayne stood next to Wash, staring at the display, his face scrunching up in confusion.

"What the hell?" he asked.

On the displays were blinking red warning lights, displaying the message "**Land Lock Engaged**" over and over again.

Someone at Eavesdown Port Control had issued a land-lock order on _Serenity._

_"Wuh de ma," _Jayne hissed, and Wash started fiddling with his controls. "Who the hell is lockin' us down?" A hand dropped to his belt, and he glanced back toward the crew corridor, as if he expected a squad of feds to be storming up the passage.

"I dunno," Wash said, and glanced out the window. He stopped in place, brow furrowing in confusion. "Look out there."

Jayne glanced up, and saw that the once-busy airspace over the Eavesdown Docks was now filled with hovering ships and freighters, buzzing and circling about aimlessly. Nothing was lifting off.

"The whole docks are locked down," Wash said, eyes wide and voice disbelieving.

"Who the hell's got pull to lock down the whole _gorram_ port?" Jayne whispered.

* * *

Mal and Zoë emerged from the maintenance tunnels and found themselves walking into a milling crowd, the din of confused conversation filling their ears. Here and there they could see the shopping center's security staff pushing through the crowds and running downstairs, to the level below. In the distance, they could hear sirens.

Mal led the way through the crowd toward the edge of the upper balcony, and peered down, before muttering a curse under his breath.

"They've got the ground floor locked down," Zoë mused, seeing feds moving around downstairs.

"Not this quickly," Mal said, "But by the time we get down there it won't matter." Zoë nodded and pulled out her radio.

"Wash," she hissed, doubting things would have changed. They could hear shouting as the security teams and police tried to communicate through their own radios, to no effect, and Zoë's machine came back with only dead static.

"Still being blocked," she informed Mal, who turned, looking around for a way to escape.

He spotted movement behind him, too purposeful and way too in-his-general-direction. His left arm slashed up as the man closed in, trying to grab the captain, and caught his hands. Mal's right snatched up his pistol, flipped it in a single smooth motion, and smashed the gun's butt into the attacker's stomach. Beside him, he heard two rapid hammerblows of metal on meat, and Zoë dropped another of Obrin's goons with the lever-action's stock. Mall kneed his doubled-over opponent in the head and dropped him hard to the floor.

The crowd shied back, people crying out in surprise at the sudden violence, and Mal knew his cover had been effectively blown. Well, one quick way to reassert that.

"Terrorists!" he wailed at the top of his lungs, in his girliest terror-voice he could manage, and fired his pistol into the floor. The low-velocity, small-caliber round splintered the tiles without deflecting, and the sudden gunshot sent a massive ripple of panic through the crowd.

Mal and Zoë plunged into it as people began to stampede away.

"Sir," Zoë hissed as they pushed through the crowd. "I'm hoping this isn't part of some brilliant plan you've cooked up."

"Oh, no," Mal assured her. "I am most definitely making this up as I go along."

"That's very reassuring, sir."

* * *

"I still don't know who you are," Simon said as they hurried through the crowd, with Nemo and Book closing back around the pair as they reached the edge of plaza. In his arms, Kaylee was breathing raggedly, and blood still wept from her leg wound. One of her arms was wrapped around his neck while the other was putting pressure on the wound, like he'd told her to.

He grimaced as he ran, looking at the livid gunshot wound. This had gone from a nice day out to a nightmare within seconds.

Fortunately, such occurrences were way too common with this family, he thought. He'd learned to react quickly to difficult turns of fortune.

"Call me Nemo," the stranger responded. There was something disturbingly familiar about him, particularly his voice, and Simon was hesitant to follow him. However, Book apparently trusted the man, and was urging Simon to do the same, and he accepted the preacher's judgment. The Shepherd was one person on _Serenity_ he'd always felt he could rely on.

"We need to get Kaylee to a hospital," Simon said. "She'll bleed out if we don't."

"We can't take you to a hospital," Book replied. "And if we take Kaylee by herself, those men might target her."

"Your ship," Nemo added. "That's the best place to take her."

"The ship is kilometers away," Simon said. "We'll need transport."

"There," Nemo said, pointing. "Comms terminal, by that wall, next to the alley."

Simon looked up, and spotted a terminal with a flashing holographic display set into a wall ahead, through the crowd. Close to it was, as Nemo had said, a small, narrow alley.

"We can watch the approaches from in there," Book agreed, looking to Nemo. "I'll go with them."

"I'll call for help," Nemo replied, and Simon blinked, realizing something about that was bothering him. Before he could voice his objections, Nemo had moved off toward the terminal and Book was ushering him toward the alley.

"How do you know we can trust him?" Simon demanded, and Book shook his head.

"If he wanted to give us up to the Feds, he would have let them grab us in the first place," Book replied, but there was something off in his voice, as if he knew more than he was letting on.

* * *

"Stillman, come in," Falks hissed over his radio. Nothing came back, and he repeated the call.

"Still being jammed," Wei replied next to him, and Falks nodded.

"Do you see them?" Falks asked, shoving aside a woman ahead of him, and Wei nodded.

"Forty meters ahead," he replied. "I see the target, plus the secondaries."

"Tertiary, too," added Falks. "We need to take him down, he looks too dangerous."

"I see Stillman," Wei added, pulling out his stun baton.

"Signal them to pursue principal and secondaries," Falks replied. "We've got the tertiary."

* * *

He was almost to the terminal. The crowds were definitely thinning out now, and he could hear the sounds of police entering the area. Unconscious bodies and corpses would no doubt raise some suspicions; they didn't have a lot of time. He momentarily considered if he should pull rank to see if he could get the ambulances to arrive any faster, but Nemo dismissed that; even if they hadn't disabled his authorization, it would be unnecessary with an emergency call like this.

Then, as he got close, Nemo spotted something he'd hoped he wouldn't see - that all-too-focused gait of men who weren't afraid, but who had an objective in mind. And they were looking directly at him, angling between him and the terminal in an intercept course.

Nemo came to a halt and broke away as the two men pressed forward. He gripped his blade tightly, looking toward the alley, and his heart sank as he saw two more of the snatch team advancing toward the pair. He broke into a run through the milling, confused mass of humanity, even as the two men pursuing him did the same.

Book saw the pair of men closing in, and stepped around Simon to intercept them. They strode forward, and he saw they were holding stun batons instead of injectors. He slid into an easy guard stance, and then they attacked, swinging batons at the same time. The Shepherd ducked and spun away from the first pair of blows, and came around with his arms flying across. He caught the wrist of one of the attackers, and redirected his next blow across, into the path of his comrade, who came up short just before the sparking tip could blast him. Book pivoted and twisted his victim's arm, and the man let out a cry of agony as he dropped his weapon. An open-palm strike from the preacher's free hand slammed into his face, between nose and upper lip, and he toppled backward.

Then the second man thrust with his baton, catching Book in the side, and an arc of shocking pain lanced through him. He stumbled against the wall of the alley, falling on his side against the harsh concrete, and tried to stand on legs that were numb and unresponsive. The standing agent spun on Simon, who was rising up to face the man. The young doctor was afraid, knowing he was probably no match for an armed opponent who was trained in hand-to-hand combat, but determined to protect Kaylee and himself.

Nemo saw the bad news, but he knew he was worse off, for he could sense his opponents closing in behind him.

He spun, blade flashing out of its sheath momentarily, and then ducked as one of the two pursuers struck with his baton. It flew over his head, and Nemo's left hand flashed out, striking the man in the throat. He recoiled, gagging, and Nemo's hands rose, catching his arm and stripping him of his weapon with a quick tug. He thrust the sparking weapon into his foe's chest, and he dropped immediately, twitching. Nemo jabbed him twice more for good measure, and discarded the baton.

The second man was on his knees, eyes wide with shock and blood fountained over his fingertips, hands clutching the throat that Nemo had cut when he first drew his blade.

The nameless man spun toward the alley, seeing the standing attacker closing in on Simon Tam, and his comrade rising shakily. Nemo broke into a flat run toward them, knowing he wouldn't be able to get there in time-

_"Freeze!"_

Everyone stopped as they heard the sound of a charging rifle.

A quintet of dark-armored figures had emerged from the crowd, leveling rifles and submachineguns at the alley mouth.

"Drop the weapon!" yelled one of the Alliance soldiers, a sergeant by his insignia, drawing closer. His men and women had their weapons pointed square on the two members of the snatch team.

"Drop it now!" the soldier repeated, and the agent slowly lowered his baton, and dropped it to the ground. Immediately, two of the soldiers moved forward, shoving the attackers to the ground while their comrades covered them. Nemo moved up while the police cuffed their prisoners, and once the two men were secured, the sergeant hurried over to Book.

"Are you injured?" the man asked immediately, and Book shook his head, raising a shaky hand toward Kaylee.

"Officer!" Simon said, shaking himself out of the shock of the moment. Feds . . . _helping_ them? "Officer, this woman's been shot!" The soldier shot to his feet and ran over to where Kaylee lay. He took one glance at the wound and whirled on his troops.

"Ricard," he yelled. "Hit the nearest comm, we need a medivac now! Get to that hardline terminal, it won't be jammed!" One of the troopers nodded and hurried off, and Simon resumed dressing Kaylee's wound. The lead soldier pointed at the two men on the ground. "Vallen, cover the prisoners. Geoff, get the rest of the squad to secure this area! Frye, help me here!"

Nemo watched the situation unfold, and fell back into the crowd, unwilling to draw attention to himself with the sudden twist of good fortune. Perhaps the omnipresence of Alliance troops today wasn't such a bad thing . . . .

The last of the soldiers moved over to where Kaylee was laying, and froze. Nemo noticed this, pausing, and was caught completely off-guard when the fifth soldier, a young woman, spoke.

"Kaylee?" she said, and the wounded mechanic looked up, her eyes widening as well.

"Ash?" she replied. "What're you . . . ."

"Kaylee, how did . . . who shot you?" the soldier named Ash demanded, crouching beside Kaylee, her voice suddenly shocked and frantic. At this angle, Nemo noted a striking similarity in their features.

"Corporal, who is this?" the sergeant in command of the squad demanded, and Ash looked up from Kaylee, disbelief and confusion evident on her face.

"Sarge," she breathed. "This is my _sister_."

* * *

"Okay," Wash yelled, sliding under the pilot's console, an array of ominous-looking mechanical tools laid out on a cloth beside him. "Time to commit a massive felonious federal bad . . . crime . . . thing."

Jayne and River watched him as he grabbed a cutting tool and got to work breaking the land-lock.

"How's we gonna bypass the lockdown?" Jayne asked. "Ain't they got our computers slaved or somethin'?"

"That they do," Wash replied, his voice echoing from underneath the console. "Its standard federal regulations that a ship that comes into port has to slave its nav computers to Port Control. Just in case they need to shut down hardened criminal types. You know, like us."

Wash's hairy arm flew out from behind the console, groping around for another tool, and then disappeared.

"After that thing on Higgin's Moon, Kaylee and I started working up a way to bypass Port Control if we ever got land-locked again," he added. "Never got much into it, though, so . . . " he laughed nervously. "Guess I'm gonna have to make this up as I go along!"

"And you screw up?" Jayne asked.

"Probably short out the computers, fry our navigation, and trigger a giant red flag at Port Control that gets us a regiment of feds knocking down our door," Wash replied, nonchalant. "They really get miffed if you try to evade land-lock."

Jayne's face scrunched up at that, and he glanced to River, who had crawled into the copilot's chair. She looked back up to him, her eyes distant and unfocused.

"They still gettin' shot at?" he asked, not sure if she could tell.

"They're safe," she whispered. "For now. Captain and Zoë are in the weeds. Lost in metal woods, stampeding."

"Yeah, okay," Jayne replied, looking back toward Wash. He frowned, puzzling through her words. Metal forest? Stampeding . . . .

"Sounds like . . . they're in a building? With crowds and such?" He looked back to her, and she nodded slowly.

There was a crack underneath the console, and the lights in the cockpit dimmed.

_"Gao yang," _Wash muttered as the lights all went out. _"Gao yang joong duh goo yang."_

"You're cussing way too calm-like for me," Jayne said.

"Well, there's twelve thousand volts running through these itty-bitty wires," Wash remarked, casually. "I can panic more, if you want. Screaming, maybe. Perhaps to a tune of 'Mother of mercy, we're about to explode in a ball of fiery doom!' Maybe I could make an invocation to Buddha-"

"Alright, I gotcha," Jayne muttered, crossing his arms, and the monitors sparked back to life. A low thrum ran through the room, and green lights winked back into existence.

"Okay!" Wash yelled, sliding back out from under the console and jumping to his feet. His hands played over the controls as he guided himself back into his seat. "Let's try this . . . ."

Jayne and River glanced to the monitors, which still glowed an angry red denial of their need to get airborne, and after a couple of seconds of furious fiddling, they went blank again. A second later, the monitors blinked back to life, showing green status icons.

"We are good for airborne!" Wash yelled, grabbing the controls. "Strap in, kids!" Jayne dropped into one of the chairs as River buckled herself into her seat. A trio of rapid-fire clicks sounded on the bridge as Wash poured life into _Serenity's_ engines, and a furious shudder of power ran through the vessel, shaking them where they sat. A wave of pressure hammered the trio, and outside the cockpit, the Eavesdown Docks dropped away. Glittering spires and slabs of worked concrete and steel and glass loomed up in the windows as Wash whipped the freighter around toward the city.

"Don't worry, baby," Wash said, speaking to his wife even though he was well out of earshot. "We're coming your way."

"Do we know where they're at?" Jayne asked, and Wash's tight smile faded away.

"Oh, right," he said. "Jamming. Unless . . . ." He glanced toward River. "You know where they are?"

River stared out the forward windows for a couple of seconds, and then glanced toward Wash, a baffled frown on her face. She shook her head.

"Oh, well, then," Wash muttered as they hurtled toward the skyscrapers. "Don't worry, baby, we're coming . . . in your vague and general direction, I guess!"

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**What a _craaaaaaazy_ coincidence! D:

This chapter was a bit short, but the next chapter should be quite longer, as well as finally put an end to all these annoying cliffhangers.

Again, apologies for the lack of Inara in this chapter, but she will be back next chapter, and will be playing an important role.

Until next chapter . . . .


	20. Chapter Seven: Heroism

_**Chapter Seven: Heroism**_

"And I swear, he said 'Well, I'm alright,' and stabbed him _again_," Inara continued, shaking her head. Haroldington was laughing silently, even as he was donning his clothes.

"After that, Lord Harrow was glad to give us his cargo," she added.

_Is the Captain always that lucky? _Haroldington signed to her, and Inara smiled again.

"I'm not sure how, but he keeps getting out of every hairy situation he ends up in." She poured them an extra cup of tea each as he put on his trousers. For her part, she still hadn't dressed yet. "I want to say its luck, but I don't believe in that. Maybe karma."

_God looks after fools_, Haroldington gestured, and Inara laughed quietly. He started to sit down beside her, and took up the cup of tea, and frowned as he noted a look on her face. _Something the matter?_

"Oh, no," she replied, shaking her head. "I haven't relaxed like this in a while. With most of my clients - and a few of my crew, too - I have to maintain an act around them, however small. But I don't need to around you."

_Well, we've known each other for how long? _Haroldington indicated, smiling. _Playing with masks is a waste of time when you're this old, I say. But surely some of your people you can relax more around?_

"A few," Inara admitted with a smile. "Our mechanic, and the doctor. His sister, too. They're all young and innocent, and I don't need to hide much from them. But there are others I can't fully be myself around, even if I have to put up the smallest facade. That's the worst problem with me and the captain, really."

_You can't be yourself around him? _he gestured. _But you speak so fondly of him._

"He's . . . strange." She shrugged slightly. "He's got just as many facades and mysteries to him as I show, except his are genuine. He doesn't know who _he_ is, I think, and that means I have to dance around him so much. Its frustrating."

_I know what you mean, _he replied. _I have this official I deal with who-_

He stopped as a buzzing sound came from the other end of the shuttle, and Inara rose.

"A wave," she said, throwing on a silken cloth over her upper body to make her seem somewhat decent. She hurried across the room, to the computer screen, and pulled the curtain aside. The monitor lit up, and flashed with an incoming message. A tap of the screen, and it appeared, scrolling across her monitor.

She frowned, looking back toward him.

"Its for you," she said, and Haroldington rose, cutting across the shuttle to stand beside her. He leaned down, reading the message, and frowned. Being former commissioner of the Persephone police force, he was kept apprised of these sorts of things.

A series of rapid, apparently linked acts of violence in the city - a sniper attack, several bodies found in the streets, jamming attacks on comms systems in the area, a shootout in one of the shopping complexes a few blocks away from the sniper attack, a Firefly-class ship suddenly violating land-lock and taking off . . . .

"Oh, _go se_," Inara breathed as she read that last one, and Haroldington glanced to her.

_Isn't that your ship? _he asked, and she slowly nodded. What insanity had Mal and his crew gotten into today?

* * *

"Captain?"

Mal squeezed off a shot as he dropped behind a display rack, several of Obrin's thugs spraying the area with gunfire as they charged into the storefront.

"Yeah?"

"I would just like to say," she paused, loosing a shot at one of the thugs and dropping him with a round to the thigh. "That it would be very embarrassing if we got ourselves killed in a lingerie store."

"Noted," Mal said, moving behind one of the mannequins in the room, covered with some improbable-looking yet highly-revealing frippery. He fired a couple of quick shots.

"Are we still running? Two, right!" She fired another blast, throwing another man off his feet, and Mal whirled to his right, putting down a trio of rounds into a wall near where two more men were trying to flank them. They fell back.

"The notion," Mal replied with a nod. "Can't stay here, gonna run out of ammo quick." He only had two more cartridges for his pistol, and Zoe was almost out of shells for her lever-action, though she still had her extra handguns.

"There's a side access, fifteen meters right," Zoe muttered, spotting a door in the side of the shop.

"Cover me, I'll head for it," Mal said, and she nodded. In a smooth motion, Zoe holstered the lever-action and whipped out a pistol, firing a barrage of shots at the thugs storming into the shop. They dropped behind the variously-posed mannequins and display racks as Mal roadie-ran across the chamber, crouching low but moving quickly.

He reached the door, shoved it open, and found himself looking down the barrel of a shotgun.

Mal was still moving forward, so he simply let his feet slide out under him, allowing his momentum to carry him as he fell underneath the shotgun and the man holding it. The thug was looking down in surprise as Mal slammed into the floor beside him, and then his face disappeared as Mal sent two shots into his chin.

As his foe fell, Mal spotted another pair of thugs standing in the access corridor, pointing weapons his way. Obrin must have sent them to flank them, he realized. Rolling onto his side, Mal fired with his gun hand, hitting one of the men in the chest and sending him toppling backward. The other goon fired his sub-machinegun, and Mal rolled behind the shotgun-wielder's corpse. The body shook as rounds impacted and buried inside it.

Mal snapped up his pistol, firing two wild, unaimed rounds that forced his foe to drop to his belly, and the captain shot up to his feet, firing another quick pair. As the thug hit his stomach, one round struck his shoulder, and the other hit him in the left eye. He went still, and Mal exhaled, not believing he'd just survived something that close.

One more instance where he'd dodged the reaper out of pure luck.

Reloading his pistol, Mal spun toward the doorway, and saw Zoe was almost surrounded. He voiced his objections to that, dropping another goon, and yelled to his second. She looked up, nodded, and broke into a roadie-run of her own as Mal covered her. Rounds slammed into the walls and display racks around her, one scratching along her back, but Mal's covering fire kept the thugs pinned down long enough for her to reach the doorway. She ran through, and Mal slammed the door closed.

"Where'd they come from?" Zoe asked, and Mal pointed up the passage.

"Thataway," he said, and she nodded the other way.

"Then that way, sir?"

"Oh, yes," Mal replied, and the door beside them shook as someone slammed into it.

"Think I know somewhere we can go!" he yelled, and they broke into a flat run down the corridor.

"Where?"

"Car park," Mal replied. "Buncha hovercars on outdoor parking garage. Saw 'em while we were running."

"Lee might know we're headed that way," Zoe replied, and Mal shrugged.

"Just have to beat him here, then."

* * *

Book had mostly recovered from the shock of the baton impact, and was standing on his feet again. He looked back and forth between Kaylee and the soldier crouched beside her, not entirely certain what irony was more pointed: the outlaws and fugitives being saved by the military, or the nearly-impossible coincidence that Kaylee would encounter her _sister_ among those soldiers.

Of course, odd coincidences were part and parcel of their trade, and Book didn't quite believe in random chance.

"Kaylee, how did this happen?" Ash demanded, before her sergeant moved over and pushed her back. He apparently was trying to keep it from becoming too personal.

"I dunno," Kaylee said, wincing. The bandage Simon had wrapped around her leg was heavily soaked with her own blood. "Was just - ah! - walkin' along and . . . ."

"This wound hasn't been dressed properly," the sergeant said. "Frye, medkit." Ash stepped to it, pulling out a medical kit from her side, and as the sergeant reached up for it, Simon grabbed it instead.

"I'm a trained doctor," he explained. "I can treat her more effectively." The sergeant paused, frowned, and nodded, stepping back and allowing Simon to do his business. He rose, glancing to Book, and nodded toward him.

"Sir, did you see what happened?" Book quickly shook his head. He couldn't explain what had _actually _occurred, but he didn't need to.

"She was walking along with me, and the doctor, and she suddenly fell over, with a gunshot wound in her leg. I'm not sure who shot her or why. I didn't even hear a sound."

"Sniper," the sergeant hissed. "Some _gorram _sniper was shooting up the crowd. Probably one of those Browncoat terrorists."

Book was silent on that, instead looking between Kaylee and her sister. Ash was standing a couple of steps behind Simon, uncertainty on her features until the sergeant clapped her on her shoulder.

"Frye, stick with it," he growled, and she looked up, before straightening. The Shepherd could see the military professionalism trying to reassert itself. "We'll get her to a hospital as quickly as we can."

Book looked back out toward the rapidly clearing plaza, and spotted more Alliance soldiers and police converging on the area. He quickly realized that they would soon find the unconscious and dead bodies they'd left in their wake, and that would lead to uncomfortable questions . . . .

"Sir," the sergeant said, stepping toward Book again. "Do you know why these men attacked you?"

"Most likely these Browncoats you're so worried about," Book replied, though he knew the real reason why. "Or maybe just thugs. Murderers looking for easy prey."

"In broad daylight?" the sergeant muttered, looking around. He didn't seem convinced, though his suspicions weren't being directed their way, thankfully. "Something about this doesn't make sense. Have you tried using your communicator or anything?"

"No, I haven't," Book said, and the soldier tapped the side of his helmet.

"Someone's jamming radio in this area," he said. "Now we've got snipers, shootings, people turning up dead in the streets . . . ."

"Sergeant!" the soldier looked away from Book, to see the man he'd sent to fetch the ambulance running back. "Sarge!"

"Did you make the call?" he asked, and the trooper nodded.

"Yeah, Sarge. Got an ambulance on the way, but there's been an alert on the Cortex! Big!" He held out a datapad to the sergeant, who looked over it, his eyes widening.

"What is it?" Book asked.

"Panic alarm at the Haroldington estate," the sergeant whispered.

* * *

_Serenity _dove around one of the spires, swooping over the cityscape in a massive and blatant violation of a couple dozen federal laws regarding operating spacecraft over civil zones not cleared for vessels of her class. For the crew of the little Firefly, breaking traffic and safety laws were the least of their concerns.

Even so, as Wash flew the ship through the upper reaches of the city's skyscrapers, he found himself checking the aft cameras repeatedly, making sure nothing was pursuing them. Thermal sensors were useless in the concentrated heat of the urban landscape, and every other crappy sensor on the ship was being jammed quite thoroughly.

"They chasin' us?" Jayne asked as he maneuvered through the city, the pilot trying to remember where Mal and Zoe had gone to meet Obrin. They'd destroyed the data disc Badger had given them as a precaution, and now it had come back to bite them in their collective _pi gus_.

"Uh," Wash said, frowning as he checked his cameras. Though there was the usual registered flight traffic any city this size accumulated, none of it looked like police or either hostile craft chasing them.

"We are . . . oddly shiny," Wash said, confused. "We must have set off a hundred alerts at Port Control when we lifted, but . . . _wuh de mah_."

"Why the feds ain't chasin' us," Jayne muttered, and then glanced to Wash. "And you even got any clue where we're headed?"

"No, I don't," Wash said, shaking his head.

"So you got us paintin' a big target on our butts with no idea where we're supposed to be?" Jayne said, frowning at Wash with his best angry-Jayne-look.

"Hey, you're the one who told us to come out here!" Wash said. "Don't blame this on me."

"Hey, was River who told me-"

"Wait!" River shrieked, suddenly, looking up from her spot in the copilot's chair. Both Wash and Jayne immediately realized it had probably been a not-too-smart idea to let her sit there in her mental state, and both men reacted with alarm when she started fiddling with the controls.

"River, don't touch-"

"Girl, the hell you doin'?"

"Shhh," she hissed, looking toward them with a sudden, obstinate glare, her voiced tinged with dangerous seriousness they hadn't heard before. Jayne was rising out of his chair, but stopped at the look in her eyes, and then glanced to Wash, who shrugged helplessly.

"Hey, you want to grab her and get your neck punched off, fine by me," Wash said, gesturing toward River as she went back to her console.

"Quiet, please," she murmured. "Need to think." Jayne sat back in his chair as she continued mumbling. "Coordinate data. Reflections of faulty minds, superimposed on official planning diagrams, marking relative locations of . . . ."

She trailed off, brow furrowing, and looked up, fingers typing in a navigational course that flashed onto Wash's screen.

"That way," she said. Wash hesitated for a heartbeat, glancing River's way.

"You're certain?" She looked up and gave Wash _that_ look. "Okay, you're certain." He hit a coupel of switches, checked her navigational course, and brought the ship around.

_Serenity_ whipped about and set off on a new course, with Wash and Jayne hoping River wasn't simply spazzing on them.

* * *

Simon finished wrapping the gunshot wound in proper bandages, after filling in the wound itself with a puff of biofoam. Kaylee was wincing and breathing quickly from the pain; the biofoam concoction from the military medical kit didn't include painkillers, resulting in a sharp pins-and-needles feeling when it made contact with damaged tissue.

"Don't worry, Kaylee," he said, working to keep his collected, controlled bedside manner when surrounded by Alliance soldiers and tending to her injuries. He'd had a lot of practice at this in his time, and he'd gotten very good at projecting that cool facade when in reality he was terrified. "This should hold until we can get you back home."

He looked up from her wound, into her eyes, and she nodded after a moment. Her felt her fingers brush his, and he grasped her hand tightly.

"Well, least I'm awake this time," she managed, forcing a smile. "Last time I couldn't feel nothin', so this 's good, right?"

"Yeah, its good," Simon reassured her. He felt movement beside him, and looked up, to see Ash lingering nearby, her back partially turned toward them and keeping an eye on the other end of the alley. He could tell from her stance that she was wavering between her need to be aware and alert of her surroundings and her concern for her sister.

"So, ah," Kaylee said after a second. "Simon, this is my sis. Ash, this is Simon."

"Hi," Simon managed, and Ash nodded. There was a moment's awkward silence, and Simon felt the urge to fill it. "Kaylee talks about you sometimes."

"Well, that's good news," the soldier replied. "Don't think many of our folks talk about me much."

"Really," Simon said, glancing back toward Kaylee's injury. "Why would that be?"

"Fundamental disagreements," Ash replied, and he saw the helmeted head shake slightly. "Look, now's not the time. Kay, you still hurtin'?"

"Yep," she replied. Ash glanced back, but the mechanic raised her hand in a placating gesture. "Don't worry none, Simon's takin' good care o' me. Done it before."

"Before?" Ash said, turning a bit more toward them. "You mean . . . you got _shot_ before?" Her eyes were widening in shock and alarm.

"Yeah, now and then," Kaylee admitted.

"You never said anything about that to me," Ash muttered.

"Cause you worry all the time," Kaylee replied, frowning, and then wincing as a fresh wave of pain hit her. Simon once again fervently wished he had some painkillers on hand. "Got enough troubles on you with Dad an' such that you ain't gotta be worried 'bout me."

"Just please tell me you're not flying around on that deathtrap anymore," Ash said.

"She ain't a _deathtrap_!" Kaylee said, scowling. "I keep 'er good an fixed up."

"Yeah, and for your troubles, you get shot," Ash replied, looking away from her area and straight at Kaylee, worry in her expression beneath the brim of her helmet. The mechanic's frown turned into a sheepish look mixed with annoyed defiance, and she glanced to Simon.

"Simon, you shouldn't be seein' this," she said. "I gotta argue with big sis here, private, okay?" He nodded. He'd had similar incidents with River before, and understood the need for privacy. With a last squeeze of her wrist, he rose, and Ash leaned in closer. Immediately, the two began a quiet, heated exchange, and he moved away lest he get caught in the crossfire between bickering sisters.

"Book," Simon said as Ash and Kaylee argued. The Shepherd turned toward him, and the doctor stepped close, keeping his voice low.

"We can't take Kaylee to a hospital," he said, and Book nodded. "I get the feeling we're dealing with . . . ."

"She'll be vulnerable at a hospital," Book agreed, speaking as quietly as he could. "And we don't have time."

"When the ambulance lands, we'll need to move fast," Simon added, and Book nodded. He caught a look in the preacher's eye, and they both immediately knew what had to be done. The doctor looked away, out into the plaza, and frowned. "Where is . . . ."

"He's out there," Book answered. "Just keeping his distance. Doesn't want to draw attention to himself."

"How do you know that?" Simon asked. "How can we trust him?"

"You trust _me_," Book replied. It wasn't a question. Simon nodded again.

"Yes," he said.

"Then _trust_ me," Book finished.

"Hey," called one of the soldiers. "I think I see it! Here it comes! Ambulance is on its way!"

"Get ready," Book whispered as Simon hurried over to Kaylee, who was still in the midst of her argument with Ash. They stopped in mid-sentence as soon as he got close, sensing the newfound urgency. "He'll be watching. We'll need to move fast."

Simon grunted as he crouched beside Kaylee, biting back the fear. He glanced to her wound, letting the injury bring him back into his clinical mindset as he checked it, and forced the apprehension back down into the pit of his stomach. He had a job to do, and he had to get Kaylee to safety.

He felt helping hands shifting her weight as he lifted her up, and Simon glanced up to see Ashley on her other side, worry apparent on her face as well. Somehow, seeing the trained soldier as anxious as he was both alleviated the feelings and made them worse at the same time.

* * *

"Stop!" River suddenly shouted, sitting up in her chair. Wash glanced over to her, and slowly throttled back on the engine, slowing the ship down.

"What is it?" he asked. She was silent for several long seconds, and then her fingers suddenly played over the navigation console The clacking of the keyboard filled the bridge for a second, and then she looked up, frowning.

"I see him," she whispered, and then looked up to Jayne.

"Jayne," she said, staring into his eyes. He stared back, a bit uncomfortable at the pleading way she was looking at him.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Do you trust me?" she asked, and he frowned.

"Kinda," he replied, blunt and direct.

"If you don't, Kaylee is going to die," she said, her voice as clear and steady as either of them had heard in a long time.

A long heartbeat of heavy silence filled the bride, and Jayne's scowl softened. She may be bonkers, but she hadn't led them astray, and the look on her face brought back memories of Niska's ship, all too vivid-

He stopped thinking about that as he saw the pained expression on her own face, and rose to his feet.

"What do you need me to do, girl?" he asked, hoping she was as sane right now as she seemed to be.

* * *

They saw the white-painted ambulance swooping down into the cleared plaza, and the soldiers started to move out into the open. The few people still in the plaza itself backed away from the landing area as the sleek vehicle dropped toward the ground.

"Okay, let's get her moving!" the sergeant yelled. "Frye, you and the doctor get her up! Everyone else, fan out and cover!"

The orders were somewhat unnecessary, as Simon and Ash had already gotten Kaylee up on her feet, keeping her weight off of her wounded leg.

"Doc," Ash said as they rose. "Do you know fireman's carry?" He blinked, shaking his head. Ash slid one of Kalyee's shoulders over her own, and nodded toward Simon. "Crouch. Time for a ride, Kay."

"Wish it was under nicer-" Kaylee was saying but her words were cut off as Ash moved her over and draped her belly-down over Simon's shoulders.

"Arms here," she ordered, lifting up the doctor's arm that was on the same side of his body as Kaylee's legs, and laying it over her backside. "Hold her good, and get ready to run."

"Why-"

"One man carries faster than two," Ash replied, unslinging and shouldering her rifle. "I've got to cover you. I don't know why those guys are after you, but we're getting you safe to the ambulance. And . . . ."

Simon looked back to her, to see her staring at Kaylee.

"Keep her safe. Look after her. Promise?"

"I promise," Simon said, nodding.

"S'okay, Ash," Kaylee murmured. "Simon'll take care of me. What he does."

Ash nodded, nervous. The rest of the squad was fanning out into the plaza as the ambulance finished settling down. Paramedics were beginning to emerge, but the squad sergeant was gesturing for them to hold position where they were. They believed the "terrorists" were still about, and while the men that had attacked them were as far from that as possible, neither Simon nor Book were in a terrible hurry to correct that notion.

Simon steadied himself, reached back and squeezed Kaylee's hand, and started jogging toward the ambulance. Book kept pace, right beside him, and the squad spread out over the area, covering their approach. He was momentarily struck by how protective of Kaylee they were, and how ironic it was that they were protecting _him_. He'd spent so long fleeing from any sign of real authority that he'd developed an unconsciously negative option of anyone in uniform, and had felt a bit of sympathy for Mal and Zoe's near-automatic disdain for Alliance troops. But now . . . .

They were halfway toward the ambulance when he spotted them, and his heart jumped into his throat. Half a second after Simon saw the first one, one of the soldiers raised his rifle, shouting a warning.

His head jerked back as a shot rang out, and the plainclothes man running toward them kept firing his pistol, dropping to one knee and bracing his weapon. More gunshots filled the air as other agents closed in on all sides, emerging from seemingly nowhere. An instant later, the squad of Alliance soldiers returned fire, rifles roaring and brass flying wildly into the air. The entire plaza became raw, pounding chaos, and Simon broke into a sprint, perceptions swimming as the headache from his hangover surged back up in full force.

The enemy had dropped any pretense of subtlety, he realized, and that was chased by his sudden shock that their pursuers were _firing on Alliance troops _in their desperation to capture them.

Shots rang out next to him, and he looked up, to see the Shepherd holding the rifle dropped by the dead soldier, firing the weapon from his hip at one of their attackers.

"Go! Get Kay out of here!" Ash shouted over the report of her rifle. He pushed himself forward, mumbling reassuringly to Kaylee as he pressed on. Bullets skipped off the pavement beside him, throwing up chunks of concrete, and he heard more shouting and gunfire from all directions.

Kaylee's hand was gripping his so tightly that he could feel her nails digging into his palm, drawing blood.

Almost to the ambulance now. The medics had retreated back into the transport, and were yelling and waving for him. He pushed forward, Kaylee's weight almost nonexistent, and surged closer to the vehicle-

A man suddenly emerged around the far side of the ambulance, leveling his pistol at Simon. A flash of panic shot through the doctor, and he charged straight toward the ambulance, not thinking, just pushing on. He tensed as he ran, expecting a bullet at any second.

* * *

_"Do you see him?"_

"Yeah," Jayne whispered, stilling his breath. Near two kilometers, by his estimation. This was going to be tricky. Had to take a lot of factors into account at this distance.

_"Stop him. _Please_."_

He heard worry and fear in the girl's pleading voice, and Jayne scowled. He had to fight to keep the anger in check. Kaylee. _Gorram_ it, _Kaylee_ . . . .

The _red _was creeping into his vision. Had to keep himself steady. He exhaled, inhaled, held his breath, and waited for the still space between heartbeats. Just one little squeeze was all it would take . . . .

* * *

"The ambulance is landing," the Operative said. "I see movement."

Lots of it, actually. He counted several soldiers running with the group emerging from the alley, and snarled at the blatant mix-up. He should have contacted the military in the first place, he realized, made sure they were on his side. Now he had his targets being helped by loyal, oblivious Alliance soldiers . . . .

Well, not for long. His sights settled over the old man who was carrying the data needle. There were gunshots in the plaza as his snatch team started shooting at the soldiers and the fugitives they were protecting.

"I've got them," he breathed.

"Sir," Hall called back. "I've got an alert from Port Control. They say a Firefly-class freighter just lifted off despite the land-lock . . . and is headed this way."

The Operative blinked and looked up.

"What?" he said, and then caught a flicker of movement out of the corner his eye. He turned, and saw a shape about two kilometers away, moving between the skyscrapers. It was hard to make out, but . . . .

He spun, leveling his rifle, and looked down the scope, then inhaled. It was a Firefly-class ship, and on its side was painted the word _Serenity_.

"Reynolds," he breathed, and then saw movement on the upper side of the ship. He raised his scope, and saw what looked like a man halfway out of the top hatch, holding a long-

The scope on the Operative's rifle shattered, an armor-piercing round punching through the glass, into the scope itself, ripping through electronics and optics, before blasting out the rear of the scope and straight into the Operative's eye. His skull was pulped in a heartbeat, and he flew backward, falling off the side of his hovercar and toppling to the streets far below.

* * *

_"Yeeeeeeeeeeeah!" _Jayne Cobb shouted, pumping his fist in the air. "Straight down the scope!" He lifted his sniper rifle up high, laughing at the top his lungs. The air rushed past him as Wash brought _Serenity_ around, the wind stealing his cheers.

He'd just scope-sniped a man at two kilometers from on top of a moving spaceship. If that weren't gonna get Jayne Cobb sainthood, nothing _could_.

_"Jayne!" _Wash yelled over the radio as he basked in his moment of triumph. Jayne put a finger to his ear, still laughing.

"Did you see that!" he asked.

_"Yes, incredibly stirring. I'll write a poem about it. But we need you back inside."_

"What's up now?"

_"River's got us a new course, and we're expecting guests."_

* * *

There was no shot. No blossoming pain, no sudden flash of numbing shock, no deadening weight in his limbs. Simon reached the ambulance intact, by some miracle, and he felt the medics grab Kaylee and begin pulling her off his shoulders. He spun toward the man with the pistol, expecting to a bullet to strike him where he stood.

Instead, he saw the cloaked figure of Nemo, blade in hand, the edge fresh with hot blood. Behind him was their attacker, lying facedown on the pavement.

"Get in!" he shouted, pushing Simon toward the ambulance, and he started to clamber on board as the cloaked man shook off his blade and sheathed it. Behind him, the Shepherd cast aside his spent rifle and leapt into the ambulance as well. He closed the door behind them.

"Whoa!" yelled someone inside the ambulance, as they crammed themselves into the vehicle. "Hey, you can't have this many people on-"

The paramedic stopped in mid-sentence as Nemo drew a handgun from his cloak and leveled it at the man.

"This is very crowded, I agree," he whispered. "But it is preferable to the alternative. _Fly_."

"Lift-lift off! Go!" yelled the paramedic

A half-second of hesitation passed, and the pilot of the vehicle started up into the air, shooting away from the plaza with its most precious cargo safely on board.

"Where did you get that?" Book asked.

"Firearms are much more attention-grabbing than blades," he replied with a shrug, keeping his gun leveled on the pilot. "Now, head for the port. We have a very _particular_ destination."

* * *

"There," River breathed, pointing. "There!" Out the front window, they could see the little white shape of the ambulance zooming across the cityscape.

"Okay, how am I going to signal them with all this jamming?" Wash asked, and River paused. She looked back at Wash, her frantic expression replaced by a sudden realization.

"Um," she managed. Wash kept maneuvering the Firefly toward the ambulance, thinking frantically himself. He didn't have any idea what to do; if he has a laser or maser, he could just send a point-to-point transmission, but he didn't have either and the ambulance probably wasn't equipped to handle it.

How were they going to get their-

"Barnswallow!" River said, sitting up. He frowned, considering that option.

"Won't they just fly out of the hangar if we try that?" he asked. "They don't know-" She shook her head quickly.

"They won't," she replied, her voice firm and certain. He considered the tone of her response, and then Wash swung _Serenity _around toward the ambulance. She had been right so far, and he was willing to trust her one more time.

"Jayne, open the bay!" he yelled over the intercom.

* * *

"What the hell?" the pilot said, and Nemo looked past him, seeing something maneuvering ahead of the ambulance. It was a ship, ungainly but familiar looking.

"What are they doing out here?" he mused, and Book moved up beside him in the tight quarters.

"That's _Serenity_," he said, confused. "They're flying right toward us. Do they know who we are?"

"If _she's_ on that ship, then yes," Nemo said, glancing back to Book. He didn't reply.

A second later, the Firefly had swerved about, flying ahead of them, and waggled its engine pylons as it flew. The ambulance pilot looked back, uncertain, but Nemo kept his handgun leveled at him.

"Dead stop," he ordered, and the pilot obeyed. Inertia pushed them all back in their seats - those who had taken them - and the Firefly came about again, its bay wide open.

"Prepare to land," Nemo ordered. The edges of the ambulance's windows darkened as the Firefly carefully moved forward, the wide open bay inviting them inside. Within a few seconds, the ship had maneuvered up and taken the ambulance into its bay.

"Land," Nemo ordered, and the pilot complied, the little aircraft cutting its engines and settling down into the bay.

"Okay, help me get her up," Simon was saying, and he opened the ambulance's side door. It slid apart, rising up into the air, and Simon found himself staring down the barrel of Jayne's handgun.

It lowered almost immediately, the mercenary cursing as he saw Kaylee and her wound. He reached toward her with his free hand for a heartbeat, and then raised his pistol again instead, keeping the paramedics covered. Book and Simon lifted her up out of the ambulance and into the cargo bay.

Nemo kept his weapon trained on the pilot, but took a glance out the door into the bay beyond.

His tracking gaze stopped as he spotted another figure standing on the stairs by the ambulance, watching the group carry Kaylee to safety with a worried look on her face, little hands wringing together. As he looked upon her for the first time in the flesh, her gaze snapped back toward him. Their eyes met, and he looked into her gaze, seeing a mixture of fear, pain, and . . . _empathy_?

"River Tam," he breathed.

"What?" Jayne Cobb asked, looking back between the two, suspicion spreading across his features. Nemo looked to the huge mercenary, and then glanced to the paramedics in the ambulance with him, and then smiled.

"Nothing," he replied.

"Who the hell are you?" Cobb demanded, not-quite pointing his pistol at the stranger in the ambulance.

"No one," he replied. "A friend of Captain Reynolds."

"That don't mean much," Jayne replied. "What are you gonna-"

"Go," Nemo replied, glancing to the pilot. "Back us out of the bay. Quickly." He looked to Jayne and nodded.

"The Alliance is aware of your presence on this world, or they will be soon enough," he warned. "You should leave. Tell Captain Reynolds to hurry away from this planet, if he values his crew's life."

"Yeah, whatever," Cobb replied, as the door slid shut. A few seconds later, the bay was sliding backward, and they were once again flying in the open air.

"Now what?" the pilot asked, and Nemo looked to him and the two terrified paramedics that had witness the whole exchange.

"Outskirts," Nemo ordered, a profound sense of regret filling him. His free hand touched the blade in his cloak. "Find a nice, safe landing zone."

They were innocents, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. The cause came first, however, and this part of the job was what he hated the most. Nemo wished it could have been different, but Malcolm Reynolds had shown him that it couldn't.

He couldn't leave any witnesses.

* * *

"We're trapped."

"In retrospect, sir, it was a bad idea." Zoe punctuated her comment with a blast that sent one of her opponents scurrying into cover.

Glass cracked nearby, rounds punching through the windshields of parked hovercars. They were back under open sky, which was slightly reassuring, as it meant they'd have the sun on their faces when they got gunned down.

Mal had tried to hotwire a couple of hovercars, but he'd lacked both the tools and the time to really get one into the air. The glass of most of the cars was bullet-proof, only breaking under repeated fire, and five hundred years of automotive security advancements had rendered grand theft of vehicles a risky and difficult proposition. Several wailing car alarms testified to Mal's numerous failures, audible over the gunfire ripping across the lot.

That was Mal's other problem: he'd gotten halfway into hotwiring his first car when Obrin's men had finally tracked them down. Now, more than a dozen men had surrounded the area, and were surrounding _them_, slowly driving the pair back until they were trapped at one edge of the platform, their backs to the ledge looking over the city streets a half-dozen levels below.

"There is just an acre of these _hun dans_," Mal grumbled as he fired a couple of shots, and checked his pistol's ammo supply. He cursed again. Down to less than half-a-dozen rounds.

"Its over, Mal!" came a yell from across the lot, and Mal fired a shot in response, telling the speaker just how over things were. A couple of seconds later, the incoming gunfire that was raking their position had slackened off.

In the odd quiet, Malcolm Reynolds could see Lee Obrin rising up into sight, one hand raised. The other hand held a pistol, but he kept it lowered. Lee nodded something to one of his men, and something went hurtling through the air at the pair.

"Grenade!" Zoe yelled, and they both dove for cover as the object clattered along the ground next to them. A couple of second passed, and Mal had his back firmly pressed to a large, fuel-guzzling heavy transport hovercar, when he realized there was a striking lack of boom.

He peeked back around the vehicle, and saw it wasn't a grenade; it had been a spent ammo magazine.

The unspoken message was quite clear: they were in hand grenade range. Lee had them.

Mal rose out of cover slowly, spotting Lee, and stared across the car lot at Obrin, his own handgun in hand but only leveled in his vague and partial direction. Zoe slowly slid sideways, but Mal knew she was still in burst range if someone chose to fling a grenade their way.

He glanced around the lot, noting the number of Obrin's troops surrounding them, most of them in good cover. For Zoe and himself, their backs were to the open sky, only a dozen meters away. Not a good bargaining position.

"Gotta say, Mal," Obrin called out. "You can still fight like a devil, even if you've gotten soft in the ethics department."

"Ain't soft to know what's decent," Mal shot back, raising his pistol a little higher. He only had five rounds left, best make them count. It was possible they could fight out of this, so long as he and Zoe didn't miss any shots.

"What's decent is ending this _shung min yao _Alliance," Obrin called back, stepping forward. "We're not going to hurt her or mistreat her. We just need your little girl's brain."

"_Not_ gonna happen," Mal replied, leveling his pistol at Obrin. The colonel seemed entirely unperturbed by that, and a smile spread across his features.

"Mal," he said, shaking his head. "There's nothing to gain from this. What do you think you are, now? Some big damned hero?"

"Might be," Mal replied, tightening his finger on the trigger, determined not to give in yet. "Maybe I could just sit here a spell. Let the feds come your way."

Obrin's mocking laughter shook a bit of Mal's bluster.

"I've spent the last seven years since the war building up this resistance, Mal," he said. "Longer than that, once we realized the Independents wouldn't win a conventional war. Seven years of accumulating resources, buying and building properties and personnel. I own half the Persephone police force. This building we're in right now, how do you think my men kept flanking and surrounding you? I own _half_ this damned planet by now.

"Mal, you can't escape. Just give up, give us your crazy little problem child, and walk away. We all benefit."

There was a long moment of drawn-out silence. Mal glanced to Zoe, who stood tense and ready, slowly edging away from him. He looked across the sun-baked lot, at the enemy troops who were tightening their noose around his neck. His eyes fell on Obrin, a man he'd once respected as a commander, and now . . . .

"I can grenade you if I want to," Obrin added. "But I'd prefer you alive. Drop those weapons, before you become a big _dead _hero, Mal."

"You know, Lee," Mal said, pulling back the hammer on his pistol. "You said you remember me when I was a good little soldier. Well, I remember when you used to have principles. Used to have honor."

"_Gorram_ it, Mal, I still have them!" Obrin snarled. "And I know what _we_ need. What the Browncoats need, what these _people_ need! Its up to men like us, men with the understanding, the responsibility, to give the people what they require!"

"So its up to you to decide what's right now?" Mal asked. He felt a breeze whistle along his neck, a familiar hissing whine, and his hair fluttered in the wind. Heroic-like.

Delay them, he thought at that moment. Just a couple seconds more . . . .

"Who else is left?" Obrin replied. "The people can't chose for themselves. You know that, Mal. Folks will always be stupid and selfish and barbaric without the right men to lead them. Men who know what needs to be done and what sacrifices need to be made."

"Then I was right," Mal whispered, an odd feeling of sadness falling over him as he spoke. He was tired. Dead tired. "There ain't no difference anymore. You an' the Alliance. Exact. _Gorram. _Same."

"Put 'em down, Mal," Obrin said. "There's no point in fighting any longer."

"Got plenty of point," Mal replied. He stared down the sights at Obrin, his voice quiet and cold. The man he looked at now was not the man he'd known in the war. "You want to push me, Lee? You want to see the me that came out of that war? Keep on. Any o' your boys makes a move, I'm droppin' you first."

"You don't have the balls," Obrin replied, taking a step toward Mal.

Mal's inevitable response was drowned out by a rush of air, and the roar of engines, and then the whistling breeze was replaced by a wave of wind that threw his coat and hair all about. Obrin's men took a step back as shade suddenly fell over them, their ears filled with the growl of might engines and their bones shaking with the rumble of working machinery.

_"Good afternoon, ladies and menfolk,"_ came a blessedly familiar voice, ringing from the external speakers. _"I'm your entertainment for this evening. I'm from the 'Don't Shoot The Captain or All of Your _Pi Gus _are Chunky Salsa' company. Now for our first song, 'Put the Guns Away Before You Make the Giant Ship Angry.'"_

Mal glanced back to the bulk of _Serenity_ looming up behind them, Wash's inappropriately chipper voice echoing in his head. Obrin's men stared, glancing to their commander, who stood flabbergasted for a heartbeat, before his decisive military assertiveness rose back up.

He pointed a finger toward the Firefly, even as the cargo bay began to open.

"What are you waiting for! That thing isn't armed! Shoot that can down!" he ordered, and one of his men raised a rocket launcher.

_"Oh, _hotze du pi gu_-" _Wash was able to get off as the missile launcher was raised.

_"Are you sure you want to do that?"_

Obrin froze on hearing the second voice, as did Mal. They both recognized the delicate, feminine tone.

"Tam," Obrin breathed.

_"That's right," _she spoke. _"If I'm not mistaken, you want me alive. You want me to help you. So, it wouldn't be a bright idea to attack my ship, would it?"_

"Tam!" Obrin yelled, gesturing with his pistol toward Mal. "We've got your Captain, dead to rights. Come with us, and we'll let him live. Understand?"

_"Let me consider your offer," _River replied. A couple of seconds passed. _"I think that, really, the Captain would be smart to shoot you right-"_

Mal ended the sentence by firing his pistol, and Obrin threw himself to the floor as the round grazed his shoulder. Gunfire erupted from all directions and both Mal and Zoe ducked behind cover and began running toward the bay, their weapons firing wildly.

Obrin spotted their attempted escape, and surged forward, pointing his pistol at the escaping pair.

"_Shoot them_!" Obrin yelled, pointing at the escaping Captain and his second. Gunfire continued to lance out at them, and Mal fired over his shoulder. One of Obrin's men went down, his shoulder erupting with blood, and the Captain caught a glimpse of the inside of the ship, the white-haired Shepherd firing a rifle to cover their escape.

Mal leapt up into the bay behind Zoe, rolling into cover, and slammed the controls for the bay doors. Rounds rang and deflected off the doors impotently as the Firefly pulled away, the doors hissing closed.

Mal stood in the bay for a second, looking across at Zoe, exhaling, and then managed a wild, exhausted peal of laughter. She echoed it a moment later, letting the stony facade fade.

"I knew I paid them for something," he said, shaking his head.

Mal looked up as he laughed, and saw the Shepherd standing nearby, rifle in hand. Book looked tired himself, lowering the weapon slowly, and Mal noted what looked an awful lot like a burn mark on the side of his shirt.

"Something happen while we were away?" Mal asked, and Book managed a small smile of his own.

"Quite a few somethings," he replied, his voice deeply tired. Mal nodded, and stepped over toward the intercom mounted by the bay doors.

"Wash!" he shouted. "Take us out of the world, quick-like!"

_"Aye, captain," _Wash replied. _"But, uh-"_

"No time for arguin'," Mal replied. "Got all manner of ugly peerin' our way. Best we get the hell off this rock."

_"Understood, Captain," _Wash replied. _"I'll send a signal to Inara, she's still a bit overdue . . . ."_

"Good," Mal said, closing the intercom. He turned around, nodded toward Zoe, who was sitting against a crate, letting the exertion o the last hour of nonstop combat roll off her shoulder. "Zoe. I'd appreciate it if you'd show your husband the extent of our gratitude for the timely rescue."

"Don't worry sir," she said, rising, a smile on her face. "I've got all manner of _gratitude_ to give out."

As she started for the stairs, Mal noticed Book, who himself seemed wearied, sweat beading his face.

"So, something exciting must have happened on your end as well, huh?" Mal asked, and Book nodded.

"Captain, I think you should head for the infirmary," he said, and that had Mal straighten instantly.

"What happened?" he asked, sudden apprehension rising back up.

"Kaylee," Book said, at which point Mal broke into a run toward the doorway leading to the ship's aft end, not waiting for any further explanation.

* * *

It was a massive, wonderfully constructed palatial estate on the edges of the rich district of the city. A huge mansion surrounded by a thousand acres of immaculately maintained lawns, orchards, flower gardens, and a series of stables, garages, and landing pads. One of these landing pads was occupied by a small, innocuous shuttle.

Right now, the estate of former Persephone Police Commissioner Haroldington was surrounded by nearly a more than five hundred police officers, soldiers, and special response troops, and no less than six light helicopter gunships were flying over the huge estate. Soldiers and police were storming the building and the grounds, shocking servants and staff, and as they moved through the buildings and lawns, the response units slowly started to feel a bit confused.

There were reports of other major crimes taking place at the same time in the city proper, but Commissioner Haroldington was one of the uppermost crust of Persephone's aristocratic community, and the police and military of the planet held him in high regard. Snipers shooting up plazas, gunfights in malls, ships violating federally mandated land-lock, all of these were irrelevant in the face of a panic alarm being sounded at the home of the most beloved former head of the Persephone police force.

The police and soldiers had expected terrorists, thieves, assassins, _something_ to be opposing them, but all they met were bewildered house staff who had no idea why an army of Persephone's finest had descended on them.

A squad was closing in on the shuttle on the landing pad, where they had triangulated the signal of the original panic alarm. Two gunships hovered overhead, and a second squad rappelled down to reinforce the troops flanking the transport. The soldiers and police closed in, a squad stacking up beside each of the two external doors-

And were caught entirely off-guard as the door slid open, and out stepped the illustrious and beloved former Commissioner, fully dressed and with a surprised, baffled look on his elderly face. The officers lowered their weapons after a few seconds, seeing the man uninjured, and behind him stood the Companion he had contracted for the evening.

_What is this? _Haroldington signed, confused. _What's going on?_

"Sir," one of the response officers said, confused himself. "We received a panic alarm from your residence. We thought something had happened to you."

Haroldington looked down to his hand, at the ring he wore, and then back up, a shocked and sheepish look on his face. The Companion's eyes widened, and she looked away from a moment, trying to regain her composure.

_This is, _Haroldington gestured quickly. _This is horribly embarrassing!_

"Sir?' the officer asked.

"Um," the Companion said. "I believe that . . . well, the Commissioner was so _vigorous_ during our business together that . . . we must have accidentally tripped his alarm."

The officer blinked, and looked back toward his men, not sure how to react to this news. On all sides of the pad, there was more movement as the battalion of soldiers who had responded to the call flooded the area. After a few seconds, the officer reached up to the side of his helmet.

"Stand down," he ordered. "Stand down. It was a false alarm."

The torrent of shouts and complaints over the radio was deafening.

As that was happening, Haroldington turned toward Inara, grinning.

_Well, they bought it, _he indicated. _Do you think that this was enough of a distraction to get your friends to safety?_

"I'm sure," Inara replied, smiling. "Thank you."

_My dear _bao bei, he signed to her, _It was my _pleasure_._

* * *

_-_

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**Well, that took too darn long for me to get to.

Like I said, Inara had her own, not insignifigant role to play in this story. Also, expect Ash to return later on in the story; Kaylee's family _is_ going to have a role to play in this series' plot.

Next chapter is the epilogue for the Condor arc; we'll find out just how everyone reacts to today's events, and get an idea of just what was on Book's data needle that caused all these troubles. And there'll be a little bit more of our favorite Brit and his _very_ fine hat.

Until next chapter . . . .


	21. Condor: Epilogue

_**Epilogue: Worth Dying For**_

"Sorta thing seems to be happenin' a lot nowadays," she said. Simon looked up to Kaylee, meeting her eyes as she sat back on the examination table, a slight smile on her face. The painkillers had that euphoric effect.

"Its just our luck, I guess," Simon replied, removing his gloves. "Can you move your leg?"

Her little toes danced in the air a moment, and she raised her leg, nodding.

"Okay," she replied, her voice chipper but a tiny bit slurred from the medication. She reached up, grabbing his hand, smiling. "For a bit there, I was worried, but you know what?"

"What?"

"It was totally worth it," she said, squeezing his hand. "Too bad you can't remember a jot." Simon managed a tired laugh. Kaylee looked into his eyes for a moment, and then glanced toward the infirmary door.

"Hey, Cap'n," she called, and Simon looked up, to see Mal rushing into the infirmary. He came up short, looked around the room, and Simon saw him visibly relax as Kaylee grinned his way, waving.

"Hey," Mal said, the worry clouding his features rapidly replace by relief. "How we doin'?"

"A-okay," she replied, and Simon nodded.

"She should be fine," he explained. "I patched up the wound. We were lucky it passed through cleanly, missed any major arteries."

"Luck hasn't been too gracious to us much lately, Doc," Mal replied. "Take what we get. Speakin' of which, I'm gonna give that preacher a bit o' hell for not tellin' me my favorite mechanic got herself shot at right off."

"You had worries, Cap'n," she replied. "'sides, you should have seen the Shepherd. The way he fought off those guys tryin' to grab Simon was just _amazin_'."

"Yeah, I'll bet," Mal said, glancing to Simon. "By the by, Doc, you had folks _tryin' to grab you_?"

"Uh, apparently, yes," Simon said, nodding. "How much do you know?"

"Not a _gorram_ thing, 'cept the Shepherd looks awful tired and Kaylee's been shot. What the hell happened out there?"

"Honestly, I have no idea," Simon replied. "One minute, I had a hangover, the next, Kaylee had a gunshot wound and there were men trying to kidnap us." He glanced to Kaylee, squeezing her hand. "We were lucky Book was there, and so was his friend."

"Friend?" Mal asked, and Simon nodded.

"A friend of his," Simon continued. "I didn't know him, but he was apparently very skilled at fighting. Saved both our lives. Book knew him pretty well, I believe, because he said we could trust him."

"That so?" Mal asked, his tone dark. Book's little secrets just kept popping up, it seemed. He was going to have to ask him about this later on, Mal figured, but that line of thought came to an abrupt end as Kaylee reached up, patting his shoulder.

"It wasn't all that bad," she said. "Hey, I got to see my sis again!"

"Really?" Mal asked. "Which one?"

"Ash," Kaylee replied with a wide grin. "The one who went off, joined the Alliance."

"You got family in the military?" Mal said, surprised, and she nodded. This was the first he'd heard of it.

"Yep," she said.

"How come no one ever told me you had family were feds?" he asked, a bit put off.

"No one asked much," she replied with a shrug. "Its funny, we've been like this so long yet no one here knows too much about one another. Like you, Cap'n."

"Well, we all got our secrets," Mal said with a shrug. "Seems 'cept you, little Kaylee." He draped an arm over her shoulders and hugged her against his chest lightly. She squeezed back, and the feeling was good, especially now, with all the adrenaline of the past hour of frantic gunplay fading away.

Mal stepped out of the infirmary a few moments later, and headed up toward the cargo bay. As he walked past the door, he nearly bumped into Jayne, who was leaning against the wall, arms crossed and brow furrowed.

"Something the matter?" Mal asked, and Jayne glanced up. His eyes flicked toward the infirmary, and he shook his head after a second.

"Nope," he said quickly. "Nothin' particular, Captain."

"Okay," Mal replied, frowning at Jayne's distance. "How's our wayward babes?"

"Wash an' Zoe were up the bridge making sticky-like, last I checked," Jayne replied, shrugging. "River's abouts. Lost track of her."

Mal nodded, and started to move away, but then stopped and looked back toward his mercenary. Jayne was looking toward the infirmary door, but his head rose as he felt Mal staring at him.

"What?" he asked.

"Been a while past never since you've called her by her name," Mal remarked, and Jayne looked away again, beefy arms crossed over his chest. After a second, Mal let the mercenary go, clambering up the steps toward the bridge.

* * *

"So, honey," Wash said as Zoe sat on his lap, and they stared out at the rapidly approaching Black through the forward windows. "Should we be doing this in front of the kids?"

"Singular, dear," Zoe replied, her arms wrapped around her husband as he flew _Serenity_ one-handed up into space. He'd lifted off into orbit so many times by now that Wash claimed he could do it with his feet, or possibly his tongue, under duress.

"Jayne's gone?" Wash asked, turning a bit in his seat to look at the bridge. The only other person in the room was River, who was engrossed with the navigational terminal to the point where she wasn't even looking at the husband and wife a couple of meters away.

"Never thought I'd see such a uniquely joyful sight," Mal remarked, stepping onto the bridge behind them.

"Sir," Zoe remarked, looking up. "We run away from enough planets that this should be more of a _commonly_ joyful sight."

"Maybe," Mal replied, stepping across the room to look over River's shoulder. "But there's few enough planets I'm quite so happy to put behind me."

"Amen to that, capt - ah," Wash's response was cut off by a strategically placed pair of lips against his neck. Zoe looked back up, peeking over her husband's head.

"Sir, can you take the helm?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. "I need Wash to inspect my injuries."

"Yeah, she could have cuts, or bruises, or contusions and such," Wash added. "It may take a while to, maybe inspect everything, see if its all working."

"Don't see no reason not to. Just don't make too much noise," Mal replied, a slight smile on his face. The pair were up and slipping out of the cockpit in seconds. He cut back across the bridge and plopped into the pilot's chair.

There were a few long moments of silence, before River spoke up.

"Course set for Paquin," she said, not taking her eyes off the console.

"I didn't say nothin' about that," Mal replied, his tone more curious than annoyed. She shrugged.

"We need to be away," she said. "Gone from the core, or anything like it. Paquin is two weeks by this route. Very little traffic."

Mal didn't reply immediately, peering back out into the Black. He didn't need to say anything, because he'd been considering Paquin for their next destination anyway. If River could guess where he wanted to go, he figured she'd already know he'd approve of where she had steered them toward.

"Inara come back yet?" Mal asked, checking the monitors.

"Ten minutes," River replied immediately. "Then we go to hard burn."

"We got the fuel for that," Mal agreed. "Put some good distance between us and this rock."

Silence drifted back down into the cockpit for a bit as they floated above Persephone, keeping a casual eye open for Alliance patrols. They'd disappeared into the general traffic over the planet, which was even thicker than normal thanks to the land-lock.

"They wanted me," River suddenly spoke up. Mal turned away from his console to see her sitting back in her chair, eyes his way. It took a few seconds to figure out what she meant, and he tried to suppress his surprise that she knew what had happened on the planet. Couldn't hide anything from her, after all.

"That they did," Mal answered, remembering the look on Obrin's face as he had demanded Mal surrender the girl to him.

"But you wouldn't let them," she said. Mal shook his head. A long moment of heavy silence filled the air.

"Thank you, Mal," she whispered, and a slow, warm grin slid over his features.

"No need to thank me, Albatross," he replied. "You're on my crew, from now 'till . . . ." he paused, remembering what he'd said to Shepherd Book on Haven, when he'd though the preacher was about to die. He glanced back up to River, whose gaze hadn't drifted away from him yet.

"From now 'till," he repeated. Her usually baffled expression softened into a smile, and she turned away to her consoles. Half a minute passed before she spoke again.

"Here it comes," she whispered.

"Huh?" Mal asked, and then a low beeping sound filled the room, the signal for an incoming wave. Frowning, Mal flicked on the video monitor, taking the message. A second later, the screen flicked to life, showing a familiar, rather perturbed face glaring at him under the brim a very fine hat.

_"Captain Reynolds,"_ Badger growled, and Mal smiled.

"Badger!" he replied in a deliberately jaunty tone. "Good to see ya!"

_"Captain, I seem to recall we had an arrangement,"_ the little man said. _"A smuggling job. Very valuable cargo, to be delivered to your ship today."_

"I do recall something of the sort," Mal replied. "Hit a bit of a snag. Complications of a sort."

_"Complications?"_ Badger echoed. _"Complications. Oh, yes, things have gotten complicated, especially when four of my men take my most precious cargo to the landing pad where they were expecting to find a ship, and instead find a pile of Port Authority officers gathered around it because someone's ship decided to break land-lock."_ His eyes narrowed. _"Complicated."_

"Well, we all knew the risks going into this arrangement, bastar - er, Badger." River stifled a laugh at Mal's most intentional slip. "Might get a bit more sympathy from me on my end, if I weren't always gettin' hung out to dry, or sold out to folks want to kill me and my crew, and such."

_"Now listen,"_ Badger said, trying to regain his menacing calm, and from Mal's perspective, failing hard at it. _"Listen close. You ever set foot on Persephone again, you an' yours are gonna have all manner of trouble,_ dong mah_?"_ Mal's smile widened, if possible; he was having way too much fun antagonizing the little thug.

"Badger, I've got personal beef with Adelei Niska," he said. "And you know I've got _all_ manner of trouble with the Alliance. Now, on top of all that joy, I've got a bunch of happy little low-life Browncoat terrorists who want me dead too. So, you want to join the party, feel free. Just get in line."

Badger stared back, his jaw working, and finally, his arm jabbed at something offscreen. The feed vanished. Mal leaned back in his chair, his smile still wide. He hadn't gotten a chance to get the real upper hand on Badger in a long, long time.

"You enjoyed that," River remarked, and Mal nodded.

"Yep. That I did."

* * *

Inara had docked, and had barely had time to lock herself into place when she felt the slight shift to the ship's gravity system that signified _Serenity_ was on the move. It took another fifteen minutes to order her home and change into something more suitable for socializing with the rest of the crew, and then she emerged from her shuttle.

"Another welcome stay?" she asked as she walked into the dining room, where Mal was lounging in his favorite chair.

"More or less," Mal replied, raising his eyebrows. "How was your . . . business?"

"Confidential, as usual," Inara replied, and sniffed the air. Something was cooking in the kitchen, and she glanced over, surprised at what she saw.

"Hey, quit fiddlin' with the-" Jayne Cobb was saying, fussing over a pot of pasta on the stove. Beside him, dwarfed by his presence, was River, holding a bag of spices and glaring at him petulantly.

"Not enough garlic," she protested. He grunted, trying to snatch the bag from her hands.

"I'm cookin', I say how much spicy bits goes in it, now gimme!" She leaned back, holding the bag away from his angry hands.

"Those two are cooking?" Inara asked as she watched the scene, with Jayne trying to snatch the bag from River's darting grasp. Mal nodded, a look of mock apprehension on his face.

"Shepherd's declined today, headed back to his bunk early," he said. "And Kaylee's laid up and spending all her time with her own big damn hero, and the only other competent food preparation personnel are down in their bunk inspecting their respective bullet wounds."

"Sounds like . . . _Kaylee_? Did something happen?" Inara asked, and Mal nodded, the levity in his voice fading a hair.

"Whole lotta excitement happened today," he said. "Too bad you missed it."

"But she is okay?" Inara asked, and almost cursed herself for asking such a stupid question. Mal and Jayne wouldn't be in such good spirits if Kaylee was seriously hurt.

"Just a minor leg wound," Mal said. "She's fine. Doc's with her, though they might be exacerbating the trouble with what they're doin'." Relief touched Inara, regardless her realization, followed by a curious frown. She tried to resist, but couldn't help herself.

"You _know_ that word?" she asked him, raising an eyebrow.

"Know lots of large, creative sorts of words," Mal replied. "Never need 'em much. Sorta similar to poems and the like."

"You give me that _now_ you little _xiao_-"

River leapt over the kitchen counter, a pair of tomatoes in hand, laughing. Jayne scrambled out of the kitchen after her.

"Get back here! Those are the last two we got!" She ignored him, disappearing out the crew corridor and down the stairs. Mal watched them leave, and then looked back, smiling again.

"Nice to have kids around," he said, and took a sip of his coffee.

"Somewhat disconcerting, almost," Inara added, sitting down beside Mal. "River and Jayne being in the same room without violence. Or at least, I hope not violence."

"This rate, I'll 'spect the Shepherd'll set up an escort service, and the Doc might start sayin' 'ain't'," Mal added, and Inara laughed. Mal took another sip, and glanced up out the window in the ceiling.

"Something about all this bothers me," he said after a few moments.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Seems like we'd get a break after everything we've gone through," he mused. "Niska, Dobson, Miranda, and then Niska again and the Alliance, and now what happened today, plus all that excitement in between." He frowned, shaking his head. "_Too much_ excitement."

"The wheel doesn't stop turning, Mal," Inara pointed out, and he glanced up from his mug, thoughtful.

"Just seems like we'd deserve some good fortune after all the trouble we've had," he spoke quietly. "Karma, like."

"Well," she said, thinking it over, "we _do_ have plenty of good fortune."

"How so?" he asked, and Inara gestured around the cabin.

Mal looked up, eyes roving around the room. He heard the steady flow of the air processors, felt the thrum of power flowing through the ship, smelled the pleasant, mouth-watering aromas of the half-finished pasta on the stove. He could see the yellow-painted columns and bright flowers Kaylee had painted all around the room, and distantly, the _slam-wham _of boots in the cargo bay as Jayne continued chasing River.

Mal looked back to Inara, and realized what she'd meant by good fortune.

"You know, you might be right," he said, smiling.

They heard boots pounding on the stairs in the crew corridor, and Jayne's voice drifted into the room.

" . . . and if you do that again, I swear I'll duct-tape that damn mouth of yours and-"

"Jayne, are you terrifying that girl again?" Mal asked, looking up, and saw the big mercenary stomping into the dining room, tomatoes in hand, and had River slung over his shoulder like a sack of grain. The girl didn't seem to be protesting the rude treatment, and as Jayne entered the room, they could see that he was grinning despite his angry tone. Besides, both of them knew that if River was in the mood, Jayne wouldn't be eating solid foods for a while.

"Just 'splainin' such to the little _xiao gui _that she can't just up and snatch the food," he replied, and then leaned forward, dropping River back to the floor. She looked up at Jayne, a silly smile on her face, and he started to jab a finger at her threateningly. His hand rose, but then stopped, and he finally mumbled something annoyed under his breath and moved back to cooking. River drifted after him.

"Now that's a fuzzy sight," Mal remarked, and Jayne grunted, then resumed making dinner as River continued aimlessly pestering him.

* * *

They gathered in the dining room for dinner as usual, with Wash heartily praising Jayne's masterpiece, with glowing remarks.

"I'm not dead yet!" the pilot said. "This stuff is actually _edible_!"

"Ha ha," Jayne replied, spooning up a mess of pasta. He glanced up as he chewed, looking at Kaylee and Simon, who were sitting side-by-side, shoulders practically pressed together.

"So, you're alright, then?" he added through a mouthful of noodles, and somehow managed to sound concerned through it all.

"Yep," Kaylee replied, grinning. "Better'n fine, almost."

"So, where's our other big hero?" Wash added. There were only eight of them; Book had emerged from his bunk about dinner time, but had excused himself after grabbing a bowl of cooking. River had seemed slightly disappointed that he hadn't stuck around, and looked distracted, aimlessly eating her food as she sat beside Jayne.

"Don't know," Mal replied, shrugging. "Something's been bothering him, but ain't our place to ask what." There were nods around the room.

"So, I can't help but notice that we're missing the cargo we came here to pickup," Simon added, and Mal nodded.

"Yep," he said. "Say goodbye to Persephone for a while. Badger's a bit miffed at us."

"Well, he can sit on that and jiggle about, all I care," Jayne replied, stuffing his face again. "We got a job?"

"We'll find one," Mal replied with a nod. "But right now, we're all right on supplies and fuel. I'm thinking we just take it easy, lie low a bit, and let this all blow over."

Words of assent ran around the room, and Mal glanced to Inara, who had also agreed.

"That might make business a bit-"

"Its fine," she replied, smiling. "I could do with a break from all this excitement myself."

"Don't we all," Mal said, looking back up toward the ceiling, and trying to forget how his old friend had changed so much. He looked to Zoe, who shared that expression.

They'd left a lot behind, but unlike some, they'd accepted that loss. The real question was whether that had made them better of worse for leaving the past behind.

* * *

They were rolling into the night-cycle, and after the myriad excitements of the day, most of the crew were off to bed. He heard voices drifting up from the engine room, and suspected Kaylee was up to something, and knew Simon was too doting over her to let her work unsupervised. He was getting as bad with the mechanic as he was with his sister.

Mal hadn't been able to sleep, again. He was exhausted, but lingered in that odd mental state where one was tired but too wound up to really rest. Instead, he had taken his own orders to heart and was standing guard up on the bridge, peering out the forward window and sipping on another mug of fresh, paint-thinning coffee. He occasionally glanced down at a book he had beside him, to keep his mind fresh; Mal didn't have Wash's talent for whiling away the long hours at the helm without any entertainment.

He heard a clatter on the grating behind him, at the door to the bridge, and looked up. He guessed who it was, and knew she wouldn't make noise like that unless she wanted to.

River stepped into the bridge, her expression her usual mix of curiosity and distraction. She looked like Mal felt - tired, bleary, restless.

"Hey, little one," he said, and she managed a weary smile as she walked into the room. She walked over to the ops station and settled into the seat, legs curled up and hugged up against her chest.

"Can you sleep?" he asked, and she shook her head.

"Scary monsters," she replied. He nodded, and her gaze drifted toward the window and the Black. Mal considered what kind of monsters she might be dreaming about, and realized that there were far too many she could have remembered. Between the Alliance and Niska, and now his own former comrades in the Browncoats . . . .

He winced as he glanced back to her, reminding himself he shouldn't be thinking about that sort of thing around her. Her eyes flicked back toward him, and her grip seemed to tighten for a few seconds.

"Its okay," she whispered, closing her eyes.

"No, it ain't," Mal replied, shaking his head. "I shouldn't be reminding you of it."

"Its . . ." she exhaled, and opened her eyes, looking at him directly. "Its okay, Mal." Her gaze became unfocused, distant. "Kinship. The same."

He blinked, wondering what she meant by that, and as he did so, River ran her hands across the console, feeling out the grooves and layout of the keys.

"Safe," she whispered. "Keeps the monsters away." He frowned, looking at the console and trying to figure out what she was talking about. Something to make her feel safe from her past?

River looked up again at him, and nodded, a tiny fraction of motion.

"What's keepin' you safe?" he asked. She shifted in her seat, looking away, and it seemed to Mal that she was almost nervous, or anxious.

"Don't want to leave," she added. "Don't want to think about it."

He nodded, still confused, and looked away toward the tumbling stars outside. Several minutes passed, and he sensed that she was getting more comfortable, calming down relative to how she'd been before, when she finally spoke again.

"You didn't answer my question," she whispered, and he glanced back.

"What question?" he replied.

"When I became crew."

Mal still didn't know the answer to that. He wasn't sure when she'd bridged the gap from being a tag-along, a scared little child that needed protecting, and being considered part of the crew - the most whimsical part of his rather whimsical assortment of people, but crew nonetheless.

Was it Early? That struck him as the most likely moment, but he wasn't too certain. When they'd been discussing her reader powers and how dangerous she was, Mal had told the others he'd think on it, but he remembered that long while sitting alone after the others had gone to bed, and he had mulled over every bit and piece of thought he could on the subject. He'd ultimately come to one simple, inevitable conclusion: there wasn't any right way he was just going to cut her loose. She was trouble, but so was Jayne, and more importantly . . . she was _innocent._

_The young doctor stood there, looking at them all, his expression a mixture of earnest need and overwhelming anxiety. The captain looked back, and all the bile, all the hatred and anger he was feeling was mixed in with memories and history and battles he'd long ago fought for, for something greater than himself._

_He pushed it back, letting the pragmatic necessity of the moment rise back up._

_"Yeah. Its a stirring tale of woe," he muttered, letting the sarcasm hang in the air._

_Right now, all he cared about was his crew. The doctor, and the terrified, naked girl who'd crawled out of that box, were a very distant second compared with the danger they represented._

_So, why did that conclusion sit to badly in his gut?_

He looked back to River, and that realization, that memory, that impossibly _simple_ fact explained so much of what he had done, so much of why he had fought for her, against all odds and all sanity.

That innocence lost.

_They were in the infirmary, with two girls who hadn't asked for any of the trouble that had been heaped on them. He'd looked at one's sleeping face, and then the other, and saw so much similarity. One wounded physically, the other mentally. He didn't need to know her long to figure out how badly she was off; the way she walked, had looked about, had screamed and trembled even in her brother's grip . . . ._

_Kaylee had woken up, and that had been a joyful sight. But more than that, the words she'd spoken, slurred and simple and smiling, had reminded Mal of what was most important to him. _

_"Its nobody's fault," she said. "Just promise me you'll remember that."_

_"I'll keep that in mind," he said, taking her hand in his._

_"You are a nice man, Captain. You're always lookin' after us. You just . . . gotta have faith in people."_

_She turned her head, looking over at the second bed, where the other sleeping girl lay._

_"She's a real beauty, isn't she?" she murmured, and Mal looked between the two of them. That was when he'd realized something he didn't want to admit. Something so powerful, so disturbingly correct, that he couldn't deny it. The very reason he'd told the doctor he and his sister could stay safe on his ship._

Mal looked back toward the present, and the girl sitting on the other end of the bridge from him. She was still watching him, her curious features slowly melting into understanding.

"When I fought in the war," Mal said quietly, taking a sip of his coffee, "We went in there thinkin' we had all the 'verse behind us. Had a cause. And I didn't let it go. Took years of fightin' to wring it out of me. Eight weeks passed in that valley before I finally realized just how worthless a cause really was."

"You remember there," River said, and he nodded, patting the seat beside him.

"Left that cause back there in that valley," he said after a moment. He'd left it with the dead, and the bones that got picked over by the buzzards and the condors.

"But you didn't forget a cause," she murmured, looking out into the Black. "Just that one."

He was silent for a long while, staring into the stars with her. He took another sip of the cooling caffeine.

"Six years we spent out in the Black," he mused. "Just goin' along, livin' day to day. Not carin' 'bout anything. Then, outta the blue . . . ."

"Something to fight for," she finished, and he nodded.

Kaylee had told him he needed to have faith in people. He had looked down at her, and looked at the girl laying beside her in the infirmary, and had realized that he and the doctor weren't that different. They both had something to protect, someone they loved - a cause worth dying for.

Mal looked over at the girl, smiling her way. She smiled back, settling into the chair with her arms wrapped around her knees. Simon had taken Mal's cause unto himself . . . and somewhere along the line, Mal realized, he'd taken up Simon's cause as well.

He would never admit it openly, but that . . . that felt more _right_ than he'd felt in a good while.

The night cycle was long, but that was fine. They didn't say anything as they passed through the darkness between the worlds. She sat, quiet and content in the safety of his presence, and he lingered in the comfort of having something else to fight for.

* * *

It was nighttime once again, and most of the crew were asleep. Mal was still up, taking watch on the bridge, and he believed Kaylee was doing something in the engine room, wounded leg not slowing her down. He had no idea where River was, but he'd heard voices coming from the bridge as he'd settled down, so he guessed she might have stayed up to speak with Mal.

Shepherd Book had washed his hair and dried it, and headed back to his room. He closed the sliding door, and sat down on his bed, peering down at his hands, cool from the evaporating water that was no doubt being caught by the ship's reclamation filters.

Today had been another harrowing adventure on the edge, he realized, with the added pain of that past he'd wanted to forget rising back up to trouble him. The specter of Nemo, and what he once was himself . . . .

That man. He'd told Simon he trusted him, but that was something he wasn't sure of himself. He knew who he was, what he had done, and how much evil such a man could - and _did _- inflict. Book himself bore scars, physical and mental, that Nemo had left on him, and anger, fresh and hot, remained after what he'd done. But still, he understood the man now, knew what he wanted, what he fought for, and _that_ more than anything had affected Book's decision to trust him, however little.

He'd long since learned to put aside personal feelings when the job required it. In a way, it made him like Mal. Too much like Mal.

Book looked down to his bag of personal possessions, and found a heavy weight of guilt resting on his shoulders. He took out the data needle Lancaster had given him, and remembered seeing his head jerk back, blood erupting from the wound. The image played over and over in his head, and Book couldn't escape the feeling that he was responsible for the man's end. Lancaster had been a friend, and had owed him so much, only to have Book's request result in his death . . . .

The Shepherd shook himself out of his self-depreciation, and inserted the needle into his datapad.

Unsurprisingly, most of the files were encrypted, but Book knew people he could call to deal with these. It would have to be low key, of course, as he couldn't risk any more of his friends dying like Lancaster, but he could probably get the files decrypted over a while, a few at a time. They wouldn't have answers right away, but they _would_ have answers.

He paused as he scanned the files, considering how much he should tell the others. What secrets were hidden inside this datapad? What was it the Alliance had been so afraid of? How would Mal react to the data within?

That question was the most important, in his mind. What would Malcolm Reynolds do with this information? He'd already seen how far his friend and Captain would go when confronted with a cause worth dying for.

Book resumed scanning the files, and finally stopped when he found one that wasn't encrypted. He opened it, and then frowned. It was just title page for a report, but what was written there was jarring, even though he knew what to expect.

_**Project Code Name: Cerberus - Cerebral Enhancement Recursion System **_

_**Physiological Report **_

_**Test Subject: Empath 000-137: Tam, River**_

* * *

They'd tracked its transponder to the edge of town, in an empty lot in the suburbs. The hospital had reported it late, and when the Persephone police force had located the missing transport, they'd called in the nearest military unit available to check it out. Fears of terrorists, and such.

It was a terrible irony that Corporal Ashley Isabella Frye's platoon was the one that responded.

She stood outside the ambulance, her knees weak, as the soldiers hauled out the bodies of the dead paramedics - one shot, two more stabbed with a blade. A weighty sense of failure fell across her, even though she knew none of this was her fault, and she sat down in the dirt by the blood-soaked ambulance that she'd last seen her sister disappear into.

Kaylee was missing. Her sister was _gone_, nowhere to be found. They had . . . .

Corporal Frye looked up, her eyes narrowing, and she remembered the face of the doctor, who she had helped pick up Kaylee, and the old priest who had run with them. She glanced to the murdered crew, and her shock and horror slowly subsided, replaced by anger and determination.

They'd taken _her sister_, and Ash promised herself that she would get Kaylee _back_.

* * *

"I warned you against this."

Obrin looked away from the light paper at his desk, and at the man before him. Nemo had slipped into the office without warning, and now his dark eyes were glaring at him with unequivocal accusation.

"There was no choice," Obrin replied with a sigh.

"I warned you," Nemo continued, stepping further into the room, closing the door behind him. "I told you that attempting to coerce Captain Reynolds would only result in violence."

"I was prepared for that," Obrin said, sitting back in his chair. "I had everything planned out. But you know the first casualty in any conflict is the plan."

"Yes," Nemo said, frowning. "And the plan was that if Malcolm disagreed with you, that we would not take action against him." He shook his head. "Now he is doubtless blasting at full burn for the outer colonies, as far from both the Alliance and ourselves as he can get. His ship, and River Tam, are lost to us."

"Temporarily," Obrin replied. "They can't stay hidden forever. We have countless agents on those worlds."

"You have riled the beast, Colonel," Nemo said, shaking his head. "He will be triply cautious now that he knows you are after him. You won't find him."

"Yes, because you know him so _gorram_ well, don't you?" Obrin snarled, standing up. "I served with him for years in the war. I know the man back to front."

"You have never fought _against_ him," Nemo replied, smiling. "You've certainly _never_ stared him face to face in mortal combat. You have never seen the real man, at the edge of death."

"Don't throw that San Yu _shit_ at me!" Obrin hissed, jabbing a finger at Nemo. "He was my best man! We connected at a level you can never understand. I know Malcolm Reynolds, Nemo. Don't pretend you know him better."

"Do you know why he named it _Serenity_?" Nemo asked, stepping past Obrin to look at one of the display cases. The colonel stopped, taken aback by the odd question.

"What?"

"The ship," Nemo continued, glancing back toward Obrin. "You don't know why he named it after that battle, do you?"

"No," Obrin replied, and Nemo smiled.

"Sergeant Reynolds went into Serenity Valley," Nemo mused. "But _Captain_ Reynolds left it."

"Hmph," Obrin replied, crossing his arms.

"This was a disaster," Nemo continued, shaking his head, once more walking past Obrin. "You took irresponsible actions, and now River is beyond us. The cause's path has been damaged."

"I couldn't have anticipated this," Obrin replied, not turning to face Nemo. "You know I didn't see Tam's own intervention coming."

"That is fine," Nemo said, shrugging. "I have no objection to that. What I have objection to is such overt and blunt methods. I have objection to you antagonizing people we must have on our side to win this, and I don't see that changing _anytime_ soon. You're putting us _all_ in jeopardy."

Obrin started to turn toward Nemo, but stopped as he felt something touching his back. It happened right above his hip, a sudden twisting agony that lanced through Obrin's body. The pain flashed away just as fast, but he found his muscles locked in place, his arms unable to move, his breath escaping only by automatic reflex. His heart thundered in his ears as Nemo walked around and stood before him, a sorrowful expression on his features . . . .

"I'm, sorry, Colonel. This is for everyone's best interests."

. . . . and his sword in hand.

"You have done fine works," Nemo said, shaking his head. Obrin felt his balance failing him, and he started leaning forward. "What you have assembled here, the resources you've accumulated, the contacts you've established, the armies you've hidden away, awaiting the right moment. A monumental achievement, Colonel."

Nemo dropped down to one knee, as if bowing to the Colonel, and flipped his blade over to face straight up. He lowered his head.

Obrin toppled over, plunging down onto the sword. Pain lanced through his body as the steel bit into his heart.

"There is no shame in this," Nemo whispered into Obrin's ear. "Your legacy will live on, in a free world. A _better_ world."

The light left Obrin's eyes as his blood poured out over the blade, and Nemo twisted the weapon. The Colonel's corpse flipped over onto its back, and he extracted the blade, pulling out a cloth from his sleeve to wipe it down.

"All of them," he whispered, a hiss of regret hanging in the air. "_Better_ worlds."

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**Well, that wraps up this "episode" of this ongoing series.

I was trying to be a little obfusticating about Nemo's exact identity, but I'm pretty certain most of you guys have figured it out by now. Hopefully I wrote our favorite nameless sword-wielding dreamer properly.

And yeah, there's plenty of foreshadowing in this chapter. Like I've always said while writing this, this story is centered on Mal and River and their respective issues, challenges, and troubles. Next story arc might spread out a bit, focusing on other characters, though expect there to be plenty of action as well. There'll be plenty more recurring characters in the upcoming episodes of this story. However, it may be a bit before I update, as I want to work out the plot of the upcoming episode and how it progresses, and classes have just started back for me as well. So, just be patient. ;P

Until next chapter . . . .


	22. Mosaic: Prologue: The Captain

_**Part Three: Mosaic**_

_**Prologue: The Captain**_

"So, you two gonna kill us or just look at us all threateningly?"

Sammy Dallion glared back at the man standing opposite him in the cargo hold, and kept his sidearm trained on him. The big man glared back, sneering all the while, as if he was inadequate or something.

Well, Sammy's gun was a bit smaller than the .45 monster they'd taken off of the prisoner, and it didn't have that nifty micro-laser triflex sight, or the pop-up close-range radar holo-imager. It was just a simple .38 revolver, but it would kill just fine. He'd dropped plenty of folks with it before, so Sammy made sure he wasn't going to feel inadequate. Besides, he was the one with the gun; they weren't.

"Captain says we keep you under wraps," replied Mike, standing beside Sammy. Mike had a shotgun, and was a little bit bigger than Sammy. He'd been with Captain Vickas a lot longer, so he got trusted with the heavier ordnance. Of course, now that Doober was dead, Sammy was a few rungs higher on the priority ladder.

"Oh, okay," the big man said, shrugging. "So, you're just gonna look threatening-like." He glanced to the woman beside him. "Zoe, this is kinda pathetic. Last time I got snatched they were a lot more professional about it."

The woman didn't look up, and instead kept staring right back at Sammy and Mike. Her eyes kept flicking back and forth between them, and every time she looked at him, he felt a little worried, even with the shotgun covering her. The big guy didn't scare him at all, but there was something about her that made him horribly nervous.

"The last men to snatch you worked for Adelei Niska, Jayne," she replied, and Sammy heard a sharp intake of breath from Mike. For his part, the younger man tried to keep his cool; he'd heard some stories, but Mike knew a lot more, and the reaction from the older, more experienced man sent all manner of nervousness down his own spine.

"You're tellin' a funny joke, huh," Sammy said, gesturing with his revolver. "Niska doesn't snatch folks 'cept who cross him, and no one who crosses Niska and gets snatched ever gets away with it."

The woman and the big man turned their eyes toward Sammy, and he felt the bluster drain away at their gaze. There was a striking edge of truthiness to their looks, something that reminded him of when his brothers stopped playing games with him and got dead serious.

"Mike," Sammy muttered, "No one who gets Niska ornery lives, right?"

"Right," Mike replied, his voice taut, and Sammy nodded, hoping that the tone was just him getting a handle on the bald-faced lies.

"Right," Sammy said, nodding. "Y'all quit fibbin'. You ain't tangled with a mean bull like Niska. You wouldn't be alive."

The big man snorted, and then stifled a laugh. Sammy frowned.

"What's so funny?' he asked.

"You," he replied. "Look. I've gotten into fights with idiots ten times meaner than you two. I fought militia, mercenaries, goons just like you. Hell, I've fought Alliance marines before." His voice lowered, and he leaned forward slightly, a tight, dark grin on his face.

"I've even tangled with Reavers."

"I said quit yer fibbin'!" Sammy growled, putting as much force into his voice as he could muster.

In truth, the way he spoke told the young man he wasn't lying, but that was impossible. No one fought Reavers and lived. Never. He was lying, he _had _to be.

"Both of you, shut up!" Mike yelled, glaring at his partner while keeping the other two covered. "Sammy, they're just putting the scares into you. Don't listen to them."

"What if I don't shut up?" Jayne asked, and Mike gestured toward the woman.

"Sammy here will put one in your girl's leg," he replied. "Then we pull her into another store room for fun."

The glares that came back at that threat would have wilted most plant life and sent hungry predators scurrying for cover. But it got the point across.

Truth be told, Sammy wouldn't want to try that, even with a bullet in the woman's leg. Doober and Fannigan were left dumped in the valley back at the old landing site because they'd tried to take her down in close. Woman was a damn monster in hand-to-hand.

What was really scaring Sammy was he'd heard the big man muttering that they should have brought in the "_xiao gui_" to deal with this. He didn't know who that was or what they did, but they way he'd spoken that had the younger man on edge.

Didn't help that the rest of their _gorram_ crew was chasing their ship halfway across the moon right now. If whoever he'd been talking about was on their ship . . . .

"Somethin' scaring you, little man?" Jayne asked, grinning, and Sammy raised his pistol, shaking his head.

"Nope, nothin' at all," he replied. "Just your ugly-ass face an'-"

Sammy heard a horribly meaty impact sound from where Mike was standing. Sammy spun, in time to see Mike go down, and looming up behind him was a man in a brown longcoat, who bore an awful resemblance to their prisoners' captai-

The last thing Sammy saw was Captain Malcolm Reynolds's face, before the sledgehammer he was holding pulped his brain.

* * *

"Judicious timing, sir," Zoe said, grabbing the shotgun the man named Mike had been holding.

"I had it under control," Jayne replied, grabbing the little man's revolver. It looked like a toy in his ham hands.

"You had him quaking in his boots," Mal replied, slapping the big hammer in his hand. "Nervous-like. Nearly heard me sneakin' up on 'em."

"Yeah, poppin' up like a ninja engineer and whackin' them both wouldn't get you shot neither," Jayne replied. "'sides, who's brilliant plan got us all caught anyhow?"

"Don't wanna hear it, Jayne," Mal said, checking the bodies for secondary weapons. He found a two-shot derringer tucked into the larger corpse's boot. Zoe was checking the corridor outside. Jayne was still bitching.

"Toldja, shoulda brought more firepower," he added. "Shoulda brought the girl, she could've-"

"Jayne, your mouth is talking," Mal said, standing up, dropping his hammer. "See to that." Jayne was about to reply, but then shut up. He checked his new toy, and grunted.

"Any of 'em touched Vera, I'm gonna tear their eyes out," he grumbled.

"Hallway's clear," Zoe said. Mal and Jayne moved up behind her.

"Which way to the bridge?" Jayne asked, glancing to Mal. They'd hauled him out a few minutes ago for interrogation, so he'd know more about the layout of the ship. They'd only gotten a good look at the cargo bay before they'd been mobbed.

"That way," Mal said, pointing with his new pistol.

"How many are still active?" Zoe asked.

"There were seven left after we got caught," Mal replied. "I took out the two who took me, and there's the two I just dropped back there. I'm guessin' the rest will be-"

The ship shook a bit, and they were jerked to one side as it did some frantic maneuvering. Jayne grinned.

"Now that's a good sign," he said, and Mal nodded, glancing to Zoe.

"Just hope your husband don't make them crash us, burn us all alive," he remarked.

* * *

"There they are," Wash whispered. "Almost slipped us."

"Slipped the _scanners_," replied River, across the bridge. Her eyes were locked on the monitors, fingers slowly tapping keys.

"You can spoof the sensors, but not the eyes," Wash agreed, his voice tight. He glanced to the girl. "Or, well, whatever it is you -"

"Split in the canyon," River spoke up. "Two kilometers." She paused, her gaze drifting. "He's going south."

"Ya sure?" Kaylee asked, standing behind her. River didn't reply, her brow furrowing instead. The mechanic stood next to Simon, who kept a steadying hand on her shoulder.

Dead ahead, flying as fast as its thrusters could, was another ship, a light freighter just like theirs, but a fat, oblong shape with a trio of engines on the back, set behind a large cargo module that dominated the center of the ship. That was the boat Mal, Zoe, and Jayne had snuck into an hour ago, looking for their score. That same ship had taken off with them still aboard fifteen minutes ago when _Serenity_ had shown up to investigate a lack of communications.

The freighter jerked left, which took it south, and Wash was right behind it as it flew through a narrow cleft of rock.

"Topography gets erratic for the next twenty kilometers," River said, looking over the sensor display and maps. Her voice became distant once more. "He's going to slow and try to lose us."

"Whoa!" _Serenity_ jerked as Wash pushed his sticks forward, and it dove under a spur of rock. Kaylee nearly fell over, but she was caught and steadied by Simon's hands.

_"Ai ya!" _Wash said, hugging close behind their prey. "Ya'll better strap in, this is going to get interesting!"

"'Interesting' is far too vague," Shepherd Book remarked, bracing himself against the lockers. On the other side of the room, Kaylee was sitting at the ops station, strapping in, while Simon remained standing beside her. The ship shook and swerved again as Wash rolled and dropped, fitting them between two stone walls that were only a dozen meters wider than the Firefly.

"What are we going to do once we catch them?" Simon asked.

"That's a good question," Wash replied, gritting his teeth. "I'll have an answer when we do." Being the pilot and the third-longest member of the crew, he sort of had seniority with Mal and Zoe away. By unofficial agreement, Kaylee was fourth in line, followed by Simon, and finally followed by River. The Shepherd and Inara technically weren't in the chain, and Jayne was definitely _not_, and hadn't been since the Ariel heist, for some reason the crew didn't know.

"He's considering ascending," River said after a couple more seconds of close flight. "He knows he can't lose us here."

"_Wuh de mah_," Wash muttered. "Why would he-"

"Now!" River yelled, and wash hauled back on the stick, a half second _ahead_ of their target, and _Serenity_ rose right behind the other freighter.

"If we had guns, we could at least intimidate them," Book muttered as they shot up into the blue sky.

"_If_ we had guns," Simon added, and Book nodded.

"If we had _fuel_," Kaylee said, and the others nodded. The supply situation had gotten a bit more strained over the month since the escape from Persephone.

"If we had _food_," Wash added, nudging up closer. He didn't need River's warnings to keep on their pilot's tail; every juke and turn was something he saw coming a couple of seconds ahead of time, and were utterly predictable.

"If we had chocolate," River muttered.

Everyone in the room except Wash turned to look at her for a moment, and she glanced up, then raised her eyebrows and shrugged. They turned back toward the forward windows as Wash edged up above their prey, trying to force him down.

"I'm spending _my_ cut on chocolate," River added under her breath.

* * *

"I can't lose 'em!"

The yell was a mixture of terrified panic and disbelief, and it came from the man in the pilot's chair of the square-shaped bridge of the little freighter.

"What do you mean, you can't lose them?" demanded the tall, bearded man with the long jacket towering behind him. Malcolm Reynolds frowned, and knew that this had to be the ship's captain. Only captains wore such dynamically long coats.

"They're right behind me," the pilot wailed. "Its like they're reading my _gorram _mind every time I break!"

"That's impossible," the captain said, shaking his head. "You're just incompetent." The pilot didn't reply, instead swerving again and nearly tossing the sneaking trio of escapees who were crouched in the corridor behind the bridge.

Mal peeked into the bridge, and noted a line of lockers by the door. Their various weapons were stuffed inside, and he signaled to the others where to get their gear.

"Bobby," the captain added, pointing to the third man on the bridge. "Go get Sammy and Mike, have them bring the prisoners up here for a wave. Maybe shooting one of them will teach these idiots to back off."

"Sir," replied the large, muscular man beside him, a fellow with a mighty beard and long, dirty dreadlocks. He turned toward the doorway, and the escapees ducked out of sight.

Mal looked to his team and nodded. Jayne gripped his revolver, slowly pulling the hammer back, ensuring it moved soundlessly as he did so. Zoe readied her shotgun. Mal clutched his derringer like a talisman.

Bobby stepped into the doorway, and Mal slammed his shoulderinto his stomach before he could even see the trio. The huge man doubled over, letting out a shocked bellow of agony, and Jayne crashed into him, throwing him out of the way and giving the others a clean shot into the bridge.

Mal rolled around the corner and fired both shots, rounds smashing into the console beside the pilot and barely missing the captain. He cursed at his horrid aim as he ran into the room, Zoe firing a blast past him that had the enemy captain diving for cover. The pilot started screaming, and spun around, scrabbling for a pistol holstered on his leg. Sparks flew from the smashed console and from another panel where Zoe's shotgun blast had pockmarked the metal.

The enemy captain was rising, and Mal tackled him as he drew his sidearm. It went off as they met, the shot grazing Mal's arm and hurting like a son-of-a-bitch. They tumbled across the bridge, Mal trying to wrestle the gun out of his foe's hand. A pistol went off behind him, but he didn't know who was shooting; instead, he focused on his foe, spinning him around so he wouldn't get shot in the back by the panicking pilot. The bearded captain responded by viciously headbutting Mal, snapping his head backward, and then started shoving him across the room, hands and wrists locked together.

Zoe recoiled, cursing an oath that would have made small children cry, and felt pain lancing up her flank. The pilot kept firing wildly, rounds deflecting off the door. The soft bullets he was using weren't designed to pierce armor and fragmented when they hit the frame, sending shards flying about. She grit her teeth, pumped the shotgun, and fired another blast right into his chest. The pilot let out a strangled cry and slumped in his chair, the instruments around him splattered with blood.

Jayne and Bobby were locked in a death grip, though in this case it was Jayne doing the gripping and Bobby doing the dying. He'd managed to roll around behind the enemy thug and get one arm up under his chin, gripping his jaw. Jayne's other arm was pressing against the back of his neck, and Bobby was frantically thrashing and trying to escape the hold.

_"Hun . . . dan!" _Jayne hissed, and his arms twisted. He pulled up and back on Bobby's chin, and thrust forward with the hand pressing against his neck. The sudden motion shattered his opponent's vertebrae, and he clanged onto the deck, quite dead.

The enemy captain was pushing Mal back against a console, the edge of the device biting into his neck. Mal grit his teeth, blocked out the pain, and saw an opportunity. He released his foe's wrists, and the enemy captain fell forward in surprise. Mal ducked, slamming his shoulder into the captain and flung both of them back across the room. They crashed into the lockers by the door, weapons spilling out onto the floor. Mal dropped down to his knees as his foe tried to cave in his head with the butt of his pistol, and then took a step backward, arm flying out behind him.

Mal scooped up his pistol, jabbed it into his foe's stomach, and pulled the trigger.

Mal froze, and looked down as he heard a hollow click. They'd unloaded his gun.

He then got punched in the face, and toppled backward. His foe leveled his sidearm at Mal-

And took the unloaded, spinning pistol right to the jaw. his head snapped back, and then Mal slammed into him, shoving him down to the floor after kneeing him hard in the gut. The captain of the not-so-good ship _Serenity_ raised his leg as his foe hit the floor, and then brought his boot down across his head, ending the threat.

Or, Mal soon realized, ending that one.

"Controls are shot," Zoe said, having pushed the pilot out of his chair. The sparking consoles that had been damaged in the gunfight seemed awful important. Mal cursed his bad aim.

"Can you get us under control?" Mal asked, and she frowned.

"I can keep us straight," she offered.

"Well, that ain't nothin'," Jayne added, scooping up their arms and distributing them.

"You might want to revise your opinion on that score," Mal said, pointing out the forward window.

Dead ahead, about thirty kilometers away, was a mountain on an intercept course.

"Oh, that's somethin' bad," Jayne muttered. Mal slapped the comms switch.

"Wash!" he yelled.

_"Captain?" _Wash replied a few seconds later.

"We've got the bridge, we need you to fly directly overhead," Mal explained quickly. "Get Kaylee to lower the winch now! In about two minutes we're gonna be kissin' a big pretty mountain at full speed!"

_"Gotcha, Captain," _Wash replied. _"Permission to panic for you, sir?"_

"Granted," Mal replied.

_"Oh god, oh god, we're all gonna die!" _

Mal pointed toward the rear door of the bridge.

"Let's move!"

Fifteen seconds later, Mal and his crew were running into the cargo bay, where the two other goons were still sprawled on the floor. By now the trio were slinging or holstering their weapons as they ran down the catwalk and toward the stairs.

"Jayne, the cargo!" Mal yelled. "Zoe, doors!" They nodded and split up as they reached the bottom floor, Zoe hurrying toward the controls while Mal and Jayne ran to a bundle of heavy-duty crates in the center of the bay.

The ship class they were on was one that had a central cargo module between the forward crew sections and the engine section. Unlike _Serenity's_ Firefly design, which had the cargo module in its belly, this model allowed different kinds of industrial loading to take place via doors set into the top and the bottom of the cargo bay.

In their case, that was an extremely wondrous blessing, because _Serenity's_ bay only opened downwards. Mal keyed the radio he'd recovered from his few captured belongings and helped Jayne secure the netting around the cargo.

"Wash, we're opening the doors now!" Mal yelled, and then heard the familiar hydraulic rumble as Zoe opened the cargo bay's upper doors. Daylight and rushing wind poured into the bay.

_"Okay, I see it," _Wash replied. _"Keeping it steady. River, you good?" _A static-laced voice replied, and Wash murmured in reply. _"Kaylee is lowering the winch now."_

"_Feng le _girl better not spaz on us," Jayne muttered as he secured the netting.

_"Heard that," _River's voice came in over the radio, a bit more clearly.

"Good," Jayne shot back.

"Quiet, children!" Mal growled.

"Here it comes!" Zoe yelled, and Mal looked up. Through the doors overhead, he saw something big and ungainly blocking out some of the light, and a long cable was lowering down into the bay. He waved his hands as it lowered, even though he knew it wasn't going to do any good.

"Keep her steady Wash, we've almost got it," Mal said as the cable continued dropping. He and Jayne grabbed the cargo netting and pulled the pile of boxes a little closer to the center of the bay. The cable was flipping about wildly, but Zoe jumped up on top of the pile of boxes and grabbed the winch. She immediately fixed it to the netting, securing it tight. It only took a few seconds, which was good, as they didn't have time to do anything else.

"Wash, Kaylee, we're attached!" Mal yelled, trying to keep his heart from punching out of his chest as he and Jayne clambered aboard. "Get us the hell out of here!"

The cargo bundle jerked, and started to rise. As it ascended, it began to waver about, while Wash fought to keep _Serenity_ stable. They rose up, the bay starting to drop out beneath them, when Mal heard a mumble on the radio.

"Repeat that?" he asked.

_"Minor . . . complication, sir," _Wash said. Mal shut up, gritting his teeth, and then the cargo bundle swayed to one side. The cable hit the lip of the upper bay doors, and a jolt went through the line, shaking the trio. Zoe grabbed the wire, Jayne hugged the netting and let out a savage series of curses, and Mal found himself in a sudden, gut-wrenching fall, followed with having the wind blasted out of his lungs.

He lay on his back on the bay's floor, looking up at the rapidly ascending bundle of cargo, and realized that he was in _serious_ trouble.

There was a shriek over the radio - it sounded like River's voice - and Mal clambered to his feet. He heard yelling overhead, and saw that the bundle had halted about four meters off the deck. Mal leapt up, trying to catch the netting, and cursed again as his fingers fell short. Jayne was leaning over the side of the bundle, waving his free arm like a desperate idiot and yelling for him.

"Mal! Grab my hand!" he was shouting. But he wasn't low enough to reach Mal and hold on to the cargo at the same time.

Mal spun, looking around the bay for something he could use, anything that could extend is reach to-

He bolted across the bay, and then ran back almost as quickly.

_"Mal!" _Wash was yelling over the radio. _"Impact in fifteen seconds!"_

He leapt up into the air, arm swinging, and the head of the stolen sledgehammer barely hit the netting, hooking inside the straps. Mal found himself hanging from below the cargo bundle, swinging precariously.

"Go, Wash!" Zoe shouted at the top of her lungs. The bundle began to ascend, and Mal pulled himself up, grabbing the bottom of the netting. A few seconds later, wind began to blast him as he was washed in daylight, and Mal looked below.

He wished he hadn't. A blur of brown and red and green passed beneath him, and he saw the little freighter they had been riding on continue flying forward for a few seconds, and then slam into a gray rock face at full speed. It crumpled into a horribly flattened shape that made Mal's stomach churn to just imagine he could have been inside it. Debris exploded outward in all directions, mixed with rock blasted out of the cliff face by the collision.

He closed his eyes, tightening his grip, and waited as the bundle continued ascending. After a bit, the wind cut off, and he was surrounded by the blessed sounds of closing hydraulic doors and the whirring of the cable winch.

Several long, happy seconds passed as Mal let his brain catch up with the fact that he wasn't about to die again.

"Sir, you can let go now," Zoe said, and Mal opened his eyes, looking around the comforting interior of his own cargo bay. He glanced down, and saw his feet were a couple of inches off the floor, and he let go of the hammer and netting.

"Okay," he said, backing away and sitting down on the nearest sturdy cargo crate, looking up around the room. "'scuse me one tick, I gotta have a heart attack." Laughter echoed in the bay from the rest of the crew.

"Aw, cap'n," Kaylee said, sidling up beside Mal and wrapping him in a big hug, which he was happy to reciprocate. "You got the cargo, didn't ya?"

"One too many heartstopping escapes for this month, little Kaylee," Mal said, exhaling. He stood up after a moment, stretching his back as Jayne and Zoe worked to get the bundle of goods lowered to the deck.

"Let's get this stowed, people," Mal said, looking about the bay, and nodding to Simon and Book as they came down the stairs.

"You want me to have a look at that?" Simon asked, pointing to the graze across Mal's arm. He glanced down and shook his head.

"Its fine, Doc," he replied, and Simon nodded after a moment, used to Mal's general refusal to seek treatment for non-serious injuries. He drifted off beside Kaylee, and started trying to help unload the cargo and check the others for wounds as well.

Mal drifted away himself, heading up the stairs. He was going to have to give his pilots a raise after that bit of wild flying, he promised himself. A few moments later, he was entering the bridge.

"We on course?" Mal asked, and Wash spun around.

"We are _extra_ shiny, Captain," he replied with a smile. "And I just want to say how proud I am to be serving under a ninja captain, sir."

"Ninja captain?" Mal asked, and looked at the copilot's station, where River was leaning back in her chair, apparently engrossed in the rivets in the ceiling.

"I have it on reasonable authority you were a most stealthy hammer-wielding hero, sir," Wash replied with a knowing grin.

'That might be a bit of truth, yeah," Mal replied.

Wash hit a couple of switches and rose.

"Course is set," he added. "Should be where we need to be in a couple of hours at this speed. Got a nice, quiet route through nice, uneventful countryside and canyons plotted out."

"An easy, languorous journey, for once," Mal said, and Wash nodded. He glanced toward the door, and Mal caught his intentions.

"I'll take the wheel for a spell," he offered. "Need to relax a bit anyway, you can catch up with Zoe."

"Now that's command thinking, sir," Wash replied, and slipped past him, heading straight for the cargo bay to check on his wife. After what happened on Persephone, Wash had become even more of a worrier than normal. As he disappeared down the corridor, Mal moved over to the pilot's chair and plopped down, relaxing in the comfortably worn cushions.

"That was some good flying you two pulled off," he said, glancing to the copilot, and she looked down, her eyes meeting his. River smiled, and that did him a world of good to see.

"That was some good improvisation you pulled off," she replied, and Mal nodded. She was oddly lucid today, which made things better.

"Man's gotta do what a man's gotta do," he said. "You knew I was sneakin' about?"

"Yep," she replied, leaning further back. Mal nodded, a slight, satisfied smile on his own face, and he settled back as well.

"Did good today," he said after a few minutes.

"Yes," River replied. "Captain Hammer did a very good job today."

He glanced across the bridge, raising an eyebrow.

"Captain Hammer?" he asked, and she swiveled her chair about, grinning at him. He rolled the name over in his head, and decided it didn't sound half-dumb. Seemed _horribly_ familiar, somehow.

"Sounds good," he said, grin growing. He settled back in his chair, relaxing, and Captain Hammer and his Albatross watched out the windows as _Serenity_ moved forward, to the next job and their next destination. A good bit of peace filled the bridge, before the pleasant silence was broken.

"There's going to be chocolate where we're going, right?"

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**Well, I'm back, with a new story arc to throw at you. "Mosaic" is going to be a slight bit different, as this arc is going to focus a lot more on character development, though still within an episodic plotline. This arc is going to be a hair shorter than previous ones - the current plan is for it to be seven chapters total, including prologue and epilogue, but I plan to cram a lot of development into those chapters. This arc will be following a fairly obvious theme, which will become apparent as the story progresses.

River and Mal are both going to be major players in this one, though the others will have their parts, and expect some real action in the latter half of this story. Some threads started in earlier canon apisodes, as well as within this story, will be devloped a little more, and expect to see a few familiar faces return, especially if you've read the comics. There's going to be a lot more growth in our big damn heroes, and some rather surprising twists in the next couple of chapters.

And yes, there _are_ references to another Whedon work in this prologue.

Until next chapter . . . .


	23. Chapter One: The Lovers

**_Author's Note:_** Lots of Riverthink in this chapter.

* * *

_**Chapter One: The Lovers**_

"Now this here," Mal said, taking a sip of sweet strawberry wine. "This is alright."

It was a familiar sort of situation. Strains of stringed and pipe instruments filled the air as folks danced about, amidst the crackling orange and yellow light of a blazing bonfire. Laughter, music, and plentiful amounts of alcohol: all the pieces one needed for a good celebration out on a border world.

"I hope this party ends up better than the last one," Inara replied, sitting beside him on a bench. She had a small glass of wine herself, and wasn't drinking as heavily as the rest of the raucous crew.

"Oh, trust me," Mal said, "I'm gonna be extra cautious this time around. No marriages for me."

Corinth was the name of moon, second moon of the gas giant Athens. Slightly less of a backwater than Whitefall, with a heaping of extra civilization, but even so, it had plentiful rural regions. Such places tended to be self-sufficient, but all it took was a couple misfortunes to put a community down on its luck. Such was the case of this township, until recently.

The Alliance didn't have the manpower to police every border moon, and they couldn't hire security firms for every square mile. Folks out this far had to live on their own, and a lot of the time couldn't rely on the law. Others took advantage of that. This town, a place of about two thousand by the name of Hawkvale, was one such. Since a fair bit of lawlessness had set in over the months after Miranda, they'd been dealing with thieves and bandits and pirates causing all manner of trouble. Corinth itself had suffered from a wave of food and medicine thefts in recent months, and the Alliance was too busy to respond to border folks' troubles.

Fortunately for the denizens of Hawkvale, the sort-of-good ship _Serenity_ had been in the area and caught a request for private aid posted on the Cortex. Bandits had made off with their clinic's entire supply of medicines, and they didn't expect medical relief for several months. Some clever deductive work by River, the Shepherd, and Kaylee had gotten them some of the details on their bandits, and Jayne's tracking prowess had led them to the thieves' ship.

Things had gone slightly pear-shaped once they'd tried boarding the boat, but that had been resolved with the judicious use of guns and hammers.

And now, the crew was reaping the rewards of their good deeds, in the form of a mighty fine shindig thrown by the entire town, with the nine crewmembers of _Serenity _hailed as heroes. And being a hero was always a good feeling, Malcolm Reynolds figured.

"So, I missed out on all the fun," Inara remarked, and Mal shrugged.

"Nothing much to see, really," he replied. "Some gunplay, a couple of heartstopping escapes."

"The usual," Inara added, and Mal nodded.

"And for our troubles, all the homemade wine one could ask for," he said, knocking back his bottle. "Not quite as fresh as Kaylee's stuff, but its got a . . . pungent bouquet of flowery delicateness to it."

"You're making that up," she said. It wasn't a question.

"Yeah. I am." They both shared a laugh at that. "Good stuff though. Make you proper blind."

They stared at the bonfire for a while longer, and at the townsfolk dancing about it. Some of the crew were getting into the swing of things, and they both saw Simon and Kaylee in the heart of it, dancing close together. She was showing him how to properly spin about, and he was doing an admirable job of tripping her up. They spilled to the ground and rolled over, laughing.

"Boy doesn't know how lucky he is," Mal murmured. Inara glanced his way, and saw that while Mal was smiling, there was a slight, serious edge to his voice. She considered his words, and knew how important Kaylee was to him, and everyone else on the crew.

"You're not her father, Mal," Inara said, and he glanced up.

"Wha? I didn't say-"

"You don't have to say anything," Inara replied, and he frowned, then looked away.

"You and Simon aren't on the best of terms," she continued. "In fact, I think he and Jayne are on better terms than you two are."

"Won't argue particular with that," Mal replied, watching them dance. "I just . . . I don't want him to break Kaylee's heart." He took a sip. "Or I'll break his legs."

"If he does, I'll help," Inara offered, and Mal let out a laugh at that.

"But he's treatin' her alright," Mal added. "And I think he's got a decent heart for her, when he looks past his sister."

They were silent for a bit, but it wasn't an uncomfortable quiet. They sat side by side, watching the fire and the dancers and listening to the laughter and music, and enjoyed each other's presence. He'd point, she'd laugh, and they'd both drink. It felt good. Proper. _Right_.

They hadn't had a chance to do this in a while. The only other times he'd gotten to enjoy such peaceableness lately were his long vigils on the bridge with River.

"So, you got any plans made for tomorrow?" Mal asked Inara.

"I singled out a couple of clients," Inara replied.

"Didn't know there were many respectable sorts out this far," Mal said, and she shrugged.

"There's a helium-3 mining guild operating on Athens," she replied. "Quite wealthy. I might be able to get you a shipping contract, though I know you're not going back to the Core anytime soon."

Mal nodded. Between the trouble with Badger, the Alliance, his "friends" in the Browncoats, and that mess with Niska, he had plenty of cause to avoid real civilization.

"Prefer to stay out here, anyways," Mal said with a smile. "Somewhere safe and quiet."

"As safe and quiet as it gets out on the rim," she mused.

* * *

"On the one hand, I've never been too partial to rim worlds," Wash remarked. "On the other, they do throw good parties."

"I'm from one of these rim worlds, honey," Zoe replied, sitting in his lap.

"Never said they didn't make pretty things," he said, one arm around her waist. "Though you 're a lot prettier un-perforated."

"I prefer that, myself," she said, and took a swig of the bottle of local grain alcohol.

"I'm gonna have to have words with the Captain about you getting shot so often," Wash added.

"No, you're not," Zoe murmured, leaning back into him.

"I've got issue with him leading the three of you onto a boat all by yourselves," Wash said. "That was risky. Too much so."

"You have a better plan, hon?" she asked, and he shrugged. His hand rose up to her shoulder, and he started rubbing it.

"I don't think I'm the only one who saw how close today was," he said. "You three got out of there by the hairs on your butts. Not that you have hair on yours. I've checked. Quite thoroughly."

"That's right," she said, drawing out her words. Wash put down his bottle as he sensed her enjoyment, and he continued massaging her. "Right there. Yeah. But I agree that this one was a bit close. Not because of the bad plan. It was just bad luck. Mmm."

"But a good plan is better than a bad one," Wash said. "Look, I know you guys are great at the shooting things, and we've got more close escapes under our belts than a dozen action vids, but that doesn't change our luck. Its gonna run out sooner or later, and I'd rather it be later."

"I'd rather it be never, myself," she remarked, and he nodded.

"Me too," he said. "But I've got this rather long thingy across my chest that gives me a whole lot of perspective on matters."

"And we don't all have scars, hon?" Zoe asked. "Lower, please. Right . . . ooooh."

"Maybe I'm just talking out my _pi gu_, as I'm not always on the sharp end," he added. "but I don't want to lose you, hon. And there's been enough crazy close calls that . . . I feel like I'm only alive because of the whims of some silly god."

"I understand," Zoe said. "And not just because you're . . . . mmm . . . hitting that spot. I'll have a talk with Mal about how things were today."

"All I'd ask for, baby," he said, and she smiled. She pulled away, standing, and knocked out the rest of her drink, before reached down to her husband.

"In that case, I have one thing to ask you, too," she said, and he grinned, rising.

"Beer doesn't help my coordination, you know," he said as she led him toward the dancers, and his arms folded around her waist.

"I don't give a good _gorram_ about that, dear," Zoe replied.

* * *

Someone offered her a drink. A big bottle of sloshing red wine, smelled like strawberries when she put her nose to the rim.

It tasted like strawberries, too. Strawberries with a hint of _pride._

They didn't have any **chocolate** in town, which was disappointing, but the _sweet drink _was almost as good.

River listened to the music as she drank from the bottle, and felt it _touching_ her, pushing and _caressing_ her skin. All she wore was a light blue dress, the thin fabric tickling her skin. The warm fire lit up her face, casting crackling embers about amidst the strains of _violins and flutes_. A breeze washed about, billowing her hair.

She smiled. This was a good day. A good night. The music was making her legs _twitch_, her body sway.

She set the bottle down and rose, watching the movements of the dancers. They were vaguely coordinated, in something resembling a dance to the pipes and violins, and she picked out their steps with ease. She watched, waiting, letting the _music_ fill her and guide her movements, and then joined the _**song**_.

One hand gripped the side of her dress, like they did in the folk stories, and she spun around, feet clapping in the dirt in time with the clapping of hands. The flutes rose and the violins cried, and she twisted and _spun in accordance_. She found herself closing her eyes, the music taking over, filling her awareness, and she slid amongst the dancers. Her heart began to soar, and a happiness she hadn't felt in a long time swelled within her.

Fingers slid into her free hand, and she came about, laughing as someone invited her into the dance. She smelled strawberries on their breath, a welcome sweetness of voice, and felt the caress of soft, happy laughter. Not all of it was from _**other people**_, she realized, and that made her laugh some more.

Time passed, lost in the tumble and the twist of the dance, and finally, she broke away, laughing and smiling. River worked her way across the party, back to the bench she had been sitting on, and recovered her drink. To her chagrin, it was low; how much had she drank before she'd gotten up?

She finished off the bottle and grabbed a new one. As she settled into her seat, feeling a _warm_ _**flush **_filling her cheeks, she felt a presence drawing close.

"Hi," said a voice, pretty and sweet, and she looked up, to see a face matching the voice.

"Hi," River offered, and the person sat down next to her. In the firelight, it was hard to tell skin tone, but the face seemed very pale. Dark hair, worn long. Black eyes.

"You're a good dancer," the face said, and River smiled, though that wasn't hard. She raised her bottle.

"Drink?" she offered, and a hand reached out to take it.

"You with _Serenity_?" the newcomer asked. "I haven't seen you around."

"Yep," River replied, and in the firelight, she finally registered that she was talking to . . . a girl. Her age, roughly.

"Hi," she offered again, as if seeing her for the first time. The girl laughed.

"Grace," she said, smiling.

"River," came the reply.

"What do you do?" she asked, taking a drink from River's bottle. Her breath smelled of strawberries.

"I fly," River said, and Grace raised her eyebrows. Thin little dark eyebrows.

"You're pretty young for a pilot," she said, and the compliment made River smile.

"And you're pretty . . . ." she fished around for a word. None came, so she settled on _**truth**_.

"Pretty."

Grace's smile grew, and she took another drink. Her eyes flicked toward River, and they sent a sudden swirl through her belly. She hadn't seen - or _known_ - eyes like that in a long time. Since before . . . .

She looked away suddenly, not wanting to remember **that place**. The _blaze_ of the bonfire was a good place to look, and the haze in her mind was making it blur together in a warm wash of oranges and yellows.

Fingers brushed her bare shoulders, and River looked back up at Grace, and her _very_ pretty face. Something was bothering her about this, but the _warmth_ in her gut and memories of _something_ she'd left behind a long time ago rose back up. Something she'd abandoned in those long years, in the _**cold**_ and the **pain**.

"You okay?" Grace asked, her soft voice curious and concerned, and River managed to smile. She felt her own fingers, brushing along the fabric of Grace's cotton dress, tickled by her long black hair.

"I don't know," she answered.

There was a _feeling_ of empathy, honest concern, and something else, something more important. A _need_ for . . . _someone else_.

River wasn't sure why, but . . . .well, academically, she understood the lack of inhibitions brought about by the consumption of alchohol, but that was washed away under the _pleasant_ haze of the drink, and the equally pleasant face she saw before her. _Much more clearly now_.

Just to try it again. It had been a long time. _Too long._

Those lips . . . they tasted like cherries.

* * *

"So, Mal was all panicky," Jayne said, hugging the girl close as he staggered across the party, drink in hand. "Runnin' about, like a chicken done got its head snipped, and so I gotta grab him and yell 'Mal, get a hold of yourself! They're just Reavers!' And he quieted down."

"Wow," whispered the pretty young thing walking beside him, her arms around his waist. Brown hair, slender, with a nice curvy rear, the kind he liked.

"Mm-hm," Jayne said. "So, we dug in. And we started shootin'. And you know, Reavers seem real scary in the stories," he said, leaning close. "But they die like anyone else when you shoot 'em."

He had her going. The alcohol and the stories were gettin' to her, and soon he'd have a good night to himself. The thought made Jayne Cobb smile, and he knocked out his bottle before dropping it in the dust. He turned, peering around the party, looking for his friends and crew. He spotted Mal, talking to Inara. He spotted Zoe and Wash slow-dancing off to one side. Kaylee and Simon, doing their stumble-and-fall thing. Shepherd Book, way off to one side, sipping a drink thoughtful-like.

River, over on a bench, sitting next to some dark-haired girl, real close, like they was-

Jayne Cobb came to a dead halt.

He saw the girl's familiar face, only doin' something he was certain he hadn't seen it doing before.

He stared for a good long while at that, until the pretty little woman at his hip tapped him on his chin. He looked back down at the girl, then back towards the other two girls, especially the one he knew pretty well, and then back toward his partner.

"You, me," he said quickly, as he felt his John Thomas really waking up. "Your bunk, _dong ma_?"

* * *

"Mal," Inara said after a long while. He looked up from his bottle, and noticed that she hadn't been asking him a question.

"Yah?" he asked. "Somethin' special goin' on?"

"Possibly," Inara said, and pointed across the bonfire. "Is that River over there?"

Mal looked in the direction she was pointing, and he did indeed see a pale-skinned girl with a tangle of dark hair in a blue dress that fit the last known description of his navigator. And beside her was another figure, a slight-looking girl about the same age.

It took Mal a couple of seconds to register that they were sitting awful close together. And their faces were drifting close.

"Um," he said, staring.

"Mal?" Inara asked, and he pulled his eyes away, looking toward her. Inara had an uncertain look on her face. He looked back between the faces, and then Inara's, and then looked toward the girls again, and _ai ya, River was kissin' her._

He stopped and stared, quite blatantly, for several long moments, until her saw River's hand drifting up to the back of the girl's head, brushing inside her hair.

Mal rose to his feet.

* * *

She felt hands. _**Sweetness**_. Fruity flavors and a scent of _clean makeup_. _**Warmth.**_

**Here** and _then_. Memories swelled up, mixing with her _now_. She remembered the warmth of her first, and how good it had felt. Afraid, _curious_, hesitant, _**nervous**_. Hands were uncertain, lips _quivering. _But this was different. Grace seemed to know and understand, like this _wasn't her first dance_.

River didn't want to let go. It felt wrong but so _very_ right. Her fingers brushed through her hair, lips exploring a tiny bit, hesitant first steps in a _place_ she wanted to see more of.

She heard boots, felt _him_ coming closer, and _moaned_ as she pulled away.

"What?" Grace asked, and River looked down, frowning at the unfair intrusion.

Mal stood over her, a look on his face somewhere between annoyance and worry.

"There you are, li'l Albatross," he said, faking a smile. "Lookin' for you."

She mumbled something unflattering under her breath about his reproductive ability, which he didn't hear.

"C'mon, little one," he said, his words a bit more forceful, and she felt him take her free hand. She looked up, away from the pretty face she'd been _enjoying_, and glared.

"Up, up," Mal said. "Brother's worried about you." Obvious lie; Simon was most worried about Kaylee, and how her posterior felt.

"Don't wanna," she said, hearing her words slurring a tiny bit. He shook his head and gently pulled on her arm. For a moment, she considered simply decking Mal where he stood - forty-three different methods presented themselves to her - but she acquiesced.

She gently rose, and cast one last sorrowful look at Grace, whose _regretful_ thoughts chased her.

He kept walking, hand still gently on her arm as he lead her away. _Swirling_ was in his mind.

She unlocked a _drawer in her head_ and trotted out something appropriate to call him. Mal looked back at her, shock and indignation dancing through his thoughts.

"Hey, I do not put that in my _pi gu_," he said, scowling. "Alcohol gives you a dirty mouth, li'l Albatross."

She stuck out her tongue, and it _**bickered**_ at him for a bit as he led her toward one of the benches lining the outer edge of the bonfire. She didn't argue; his **hand** felt warm and _concerned,_ no matter how much she disliked his intrusion.

"Was enjoying that," she said petulantly after a few moments.

"You looked like it," he replied. "But you knew what you was enjoyin' it with?"

"Mmm."

"Exactly," Mal replied, crossing his arms, his drink sloshing in the bottle he still held. "You know you was kissin' a girl?"

The _petulance_ popped and faded, but she replaced it with a knowing smile. Things were a bit hazy. Cloudy. _**Muddled. **_She wanted another drink.

"Maybe," she said, not willing to let him get the upper hand. He snorted. She took another sip of her own bottle.

"You may be a reader, but I can see faces plain as day," he replied, and she finally giggled. That put him off an instant.

"Why so serious, Captain Hammer?" she asked, plopping down in the dirt beside the bench. He glanced at it, and then sat down beside her in the dust. Pages flipped in his mind as he tried to answer her. They were a _bit damp_ from the wine he'd had, slow to move. Little _colors_ filled his thoughts.

"Well, its fair bit obvious," he finally said, "that, like all of us, you've had a couple of sips of scrumpy."

River giggled at his words. She liked them, the way they sounded. The way he made them sound.

"And, you should know that _I_ know," he said, gesturing into the air. "When you get some drink in you, sometimes you don't think clear. Make rationalizations and such."

Her lip curled back, and then she took a sip, staring right at him. River dredged up her best "you big dummy" look, and Mal caught it quick. He frowned, wondering what she meant, and she tapped her head. He kept staring, and she finally sighed and looked away.

His pages stopped, _rustled_, and then flipped again.

"Oh," he finally said. "Right. Your mind isn't the clearest anyway." He shook his head. "But that's just my point, Albatross. You got a brain that don't run right, so you've got to be real careful. 'specially with this." He raised his bottle, and took a sip.

"I mean, how much have you drank?" he asked. River paused, running the calculations in her head. It was hard. She felt _swirly_. _**Good**_. She burped, giggled, and held up two fingers, her best estimate.

"Two _gorram_ bottles," Mal said, looking at her drink. "And you're only eighteen. Never drank before, have you?"

"Once, twice," she said, and then took another sip.

"And that's my point there, too," he continued. "You . . . you ain't used to the drink. What happens, you get enough in you to really make your mind cloudy? Cloudier than it is, any rate."

"I get married to a sneaky red head who steals the ship," River replied, and he glared back a her.

"And that's just it, Albatross," he said, nodding. "Gotta be careful. Hell, you get enough in you, I'd 'spect you an' Jayne would be wakin' up in bed."

That mental image made her giggle again, which was precisely the reaction he wasn't wanting. His hands reached across to snatch her bottle away, but she leaned back, holding it out of reach.

"Mine."

"Fine," Mal said, frowning again.

"You're pouty," she replied, and the look on his face made her giggle again. And then some more.

"Didn't expect I'd have to pull my navigator away from lockin' lips with girlfolk," Mal replied. He sat back, and knocked back a long swig.

River did the same, though she was running low in her bottle. She watched the flickering bonfire and the people dancing around it, the musical strains dancing around her ears, warm and sweet.

"Since when you liked girls, anyhow?" Mal asked after a while, and she looked up. Her mind ran calculations without even thinking about it.

"Since seventeen minutes and twenty-three seconds ago," she answered, and he stifled a laugh.

"Really," Mal said. "I didn't know you had a preference. Didja?"

"No," River replied. She held up her bottle. "The scrumpy did it."

The way she'd said that must have made him laugh, as he threw his head back and began chuckling uncontrollably. It went on for several seconds before it infected her too, and she started laughing as well. That went on for a bit, and it felt good. Very good. Just two drunk folk, laughing at the funny names of alcohol.

"Well," Mal finally said, wiping tears from his eyes. "That's good."

"Felt good," River said. She smiled as she looked over the fire, and finished her bottle off. "They were soft. Warm. Cherries. I think it was the wine, but those were strawberries."

"Uh, yeah," Mal said after a second. His pages were still turning, but slowly. Mischief welled up inside her, and in her inebriated state, River couldn't resist.

"Is Captain Hammer jealous?" she asked.

"Wha?" he replied, looking down at her, and she stared back, working hard to straighten her face.

"The Captain is jealous he can't kiss them, isn't he?" she asked, and he slid a bit away from her, staring at River like she'd sprouted antlers.

"Am absolutely not!" he proclaimed. "Where'd you . . . how are you gettin' that kinda notion?"

She peered back, struggling as hard as she could, before finally breaking down into a fit of laughter.

"Almost as bad as Simon," she said after a few moments. It took a few moments for his alcohol-laden brain to process the joke.

"You keep them stupid games up, I'm leavin' you here in the mornin'," he growled, and she kept laughing, and then paused midway through to hiccup. He leaned across and snatched the near-empty bottle from her, and she didn't argue.

"Too much of that, now," he said, and finished it off for her.

"If you say so, Captain," she replied, enjoying the good feelings the drink left her, the warmth of the bonfire, and his presence. Most of all, she tasted the memory of those lips, and tried pushing back the embarrassment with pleasure.

River decided she had tasted good. No wonder the Captain liked girls, too.

* * *

"Those two look happy," Wash said as he slowly danced around the edge of the firelight. Zoe looked up to where he was staring, and saw Mal and River sitting at the edge of the bonfire, smiling and laughing at nothing.

"Captain's a good baby-sitter," she murmured. "He hates it, but he does a decent job."

"Never much imagined Mal for taking care of kids," Wash remarked. He looked back to her. "Of course, I never imagined you smiling when we first met."

"And I never imagined Jayne saying three-syllable words," she added. "Or Simon saying something to Kaylee that didn't send her running off in a huff."

"Was there something you couldn't imagine me being?" he asked her, and she thought on it a moment. She reached up, brushing his upper lip.

"You being handsome under that milk net," she said, and he laughed.

* * *

"Enjoying yourself?"

Shepherd Book looked up as Inara walked across the outer edge of the bonfire light, the orange flickers making her tan skin a shade darker. In the low illumination, he seemed like a study of contrasts himself, white hair standing out starkly against dark skin.

"Somewhat, I suppose," he replied with a smile, scooting aside to offer her room. She took it. "I see you're not as enthusiastic about the party as everyone else."

"Not my kind of party," Inara said, taking a sip from her up.

"Indeed," Book said. "There's been a conspicuous lack of punching or swordfights."

"That's an improvement over Mal's usual behavior," she remarked, looking across the groups of dancers. Strains of happy music drifted towards them, and over the sounds they could hear laughter.

Book followed her gaze, and he spotted what looked like the Captain, sitting in the dirt beside River. He was pointing at something, and she seemed to be laughing. They both looked rather drunk, as far as he could tell.

"Something the matter?" Book asked, noting her look.

"Um," she said, pausing, and looking down at her glass. She glanced up at Book, considering what to say. "Confidential?"

"Is this a confession?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Possibly," she replied. "Can I trust you with this? Not to tell anyone?"

"I wouldn't be a good priest if I talked about what was spoken in confidence," he replied. "Go ahead. I won't talk, I swear."

"Okay," she said, considering her words carefully. "I'm sure you're not the only one who's aware of my . . . relationship . . . with Mal."

"Yes, the insults and arguments, and the occasional slapping, they do seem to indicate something," he replied, and she looked back up at him, not sure if he was being sarcastic.

"Well, only a blind person could miss what's really going on," Inara said, "and I know you're not blind, Shepherd."

"Indeed," he replied. "I've been wondering if you would ever act on these feelings between you two for a long while. There have been hints, but . . . ."

"But it gets . . . complicated," she said. "We have a strictly businesslike relationship, but these feelings make it much more difficult."

"Inara," Book said, his voice earnest. "The first step to recognizing yourself is honesty. This hasn't been a 'strictly businesslike' relationship since before I came on board."

She sighed, and nodded.

"Am I that transparent?" she asked, letting out a nervous laugh.

"Not really," he replied. "But the relationship between you and the Captain is palpable. I think even Jayne recognizes it."

"That's somewhat embarrassing," she remarked, looking toward the fire.

"So, do you have the desire to act upon these feelings you have for him?" Book continued.

"Sometimes," she replied. "But I'm not entirely sure if its reciprocal. He is very puritanical about sex, yet he has no problems with sleeping with women. When we were at the Heart of Gold, he bedded Nandi, and you and I both know that with Saffron . . . . "

"Saffron was a trained Companion," he remarked, and Inara shook her head.

"Companions can't make someone feel something that isn't there," she said. "But Mal is just so . . . complicated. I feel I always have to wear a mask around him."

"You wear the mask because you're afraid to admit you have feelings for him," Book said, and Inara was silent for a long while.

"Companions don't make commitments," she murmured. "Its not our way. That was why I left before, because I was being pulled into a commitment, and now I'm not certain anymore."

"Are you certain you really want to be a Companion?" Book asked, and she smirked.

"If you're trying to draw me away from my wicked ways," she began, and he chuckled.

"Not at all," he replied. "But I do believe you have to make a choice - between the two. If you do love him, you'll have to make a choice between your lifestyle or the man."

"Love?" Inara said, quietly. "I'm not sure if that's it." She shook her head. "In truth, I'm not sure at all. I enjoy my work, but I enjoy living with this family just as much. If I'd have to choose . . . oh, Buddha, I don't want to choose."

"Not making a choice is just as much of one," Book said.

"You're right," she mused, and exhaled, before standing. "Thank you, Shepherd."

"That's what I'm here for," he replied, smiling back. She drifted off away to another dark spot in the firelight, and he went back to reading his Bible, musing over her concerns.

He hoped she would make a choice for herself soon, before the 'verse made the choice for her. That was a mistake he'd made himself.

* * *

Mal had led her back to the ship. By that time, River was still tipsy, and laughing the whole way home.

"You get some rest," Mal said with a smile as he led her to her room. "Got a big day tomorrow." She nodded, still smiling, and managed to make it to her room. She undressed and slipped under the covers, hugging them around her.

The warmth of her blankets reminded her of the warmth of the girl's breath, and the sweet taste. She danced back around that memory, welcoming it and hoping she'd still have it in the morning. The feel, the scents, the sensations both within and without.

That called up something else, a memory of before, of an uncertain, giggling first kiss, back when she was almost fourteen. A boy from school, sorry to see her going, asking her for one last gift to remember her by. He was hesitant, terrified, and she was a little bit too. It had been rougher and cooler, not as sweet and certainly without alcohol.

And then, the next day, she went to . . . .

River felt a chill, closed her eyes, and hugged the blankets tighter.

Needles. Knives.** Lies**.

Academy.

The _cold __**darkness**_, the **emptiness** of her cell, the _exercises_, the training, _**the chair**_. That _gorram chair_, and the _**syringes**_ they stuck in her brain. She heard the saws _buzzing_, the neural lace, cold and long words that she understood but didn't. _Glass shards_, light, fractions and **fractals**, memories and thoughts and _hunger_ and _fear_ and _**laughter **_and

Beneath the blankets, she curled up into a ball and shook, sobbing. Tears soaked her pillows and sheets as she returned there, to that _naked place of good works_.

River wanted to forget. She wanted to never remember any of that, no matter what it took. Didn't want it, never wanted it.

She lay under her covers, arms wrapped around herself, the warmth of her blankets doing nothing to ward off the shaking and the cold and the memories. River clenched her eyes tightly closed, and fervently prayed that by morning, the alcohol would make her forget about Grace and those sweet lips.

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**A special thanks should go to TheShoelessOne, whose story "Should've Known Better" was an inspiration for the drunken antics of our crew.

The idea to explore River's sexuality and leanings has been kicking around in my head for a while, and I decided to play around with it this chapter. Obviously, River's actions in this chapter are a result of a lot of factors, not the least being that she's drunk and whimsical in the brainpan, but there are also some deeper psychological issues stemming from her time at the Academy that triggered some of her actions. As this series progresses, I'm going to be exploring some of the things that happened to her and how they've affected her thinking.

Also, while I did some exploration of Inara this chapter, she's not gong to be terribly prominient in this particular arc. However, the next arc, which is already under construction, will deal with her relationship with Mal in greater detail.

Until next chapter . . . .


	24. Chapter Two: The Thinkers

_**Chapter Two: The Thinkers**_

"So, they're dead." the speaker leaned back in his chair, sighing.

"More likely than not," said Mitch. The huge, dark-skinned man shrugged, the motion displacing his dreadlocks.

"The ship is spread across three kilometers around Mount Redwolf," growled the captain, shaking his head. "They're dead."

"What about the cargo?" asked Marietta, scowling beneath her blonde tresses. She was sitting across the room, leaning forward, her corded muscles visible beneath the slip of a tank top she wore. "Did you find the _cargo_?"

"If it was on their boat, it got atomized with the rest," Mitch replied, shrugging. "I didn't bother searching."

Marietta's glare intensified, and she spun toward their captain.

"Twenty thousand," she hissed. "Twenty thousand credits' worth of medicine, lost!"

"And worse, we _know_ who hired us," called Si Quan from across the room. "He'll have our heads if we don't-"

"Not precisely," Mitch said, holding up a thin black case. "I got the data recorder from the cockpit section. Ya'll are going to want to see this."

"Plug it in," the captain ordered, and he did so. A moment later, the little conference room on their ship darkened, and all around the chamber, a dozen men and women crowded around the projector.

"Most of its not worth watching, because the relevant part is right here," Mitch said, scrolling through the data and bringing up sensor and camera recordings. He froze the images toward the end of the recorder's life, and they all got a good, solid look at the ungainly vessel that had been chasing their late colleagues' lamented ship.

"Is that pile of crap what I think it is?" the captain whispered, and they all heard a giggle from across the room. A thin, tattooed man with dark, sadistic eyes was smiling with unabashed glee.

"Reynolds," Selke whispered, and his fingers ran over the knives on his belt.

"Indeed," the captain said, leaning forward into the light, the hologram illuminating the hundreds of delicate kanji inscribed across the left side of his face. A deeply anticipatory smile spread across his features.

"Captain Malcolm Reynolds," Captain Ott Park said, his voice relishing the moment. He looked around the room at his crew, and chuckled.

"Gentlemen and lady," he said, straightening. "This is a _very_ fortunate turn of events for us."

"Profitable, you mean?" asked Marietta, and Ott smiled.

"That too."

* * *

Zoe grimaced as gloved fingers probed her side, looking over the flurry of small, narrow cuts in her flank. The infirmary smelled of disinfectant; the doctor had just done a cleaning rub of the whole room an hour ago. A light shone into the injuries from the doctor's other hand.

"They seem to be coming along well enough," Simon said his voice wavering between medical professionalism and awkward conversationalism. "I don't see any foreign material in them."

"You got any idea why they were bleeding?" Zoe asked, and he frowned.

"The wounds are still fresh," he remarked "You probably opened them up a little bit last night at the party. Or afterwards." She grunted, looking across the room to the bloody shirt she'd worn last night. It probably hadn't been a good idea to head back to their bunk with Wash so soon after a gunfight.

"That it?" she asked, and he nodded.

"Just try not to do any strenuous activity for a bit, let the biofoam patch them back up," he offered, replacing the bandages.

"Sorry to bother you with this, Doctor," she apologized as she pulled her shirt down.

"Its okay," he replied, pulling off his gloves. "My job, after all. I get paid to worry about everyone."

"I'd say we need a little less worrying around here," Zoe murmured. "Between the Captain, Wash, and you, we've got enough worry for a platoon of mothers." He smiled at that, walking across the infirmary as one of the computers beeped.

"Good timing," he said. "Blood test is done." He looked over the screen, nodding to himself. "Like I expected. No foreign material in your blood stream either, so you didn't get an infection from the shrapnel. You should be good to . . . ."

Zoe caught the trail off, and saw his brow furrow.

"What?" she asked, standing up off the examination table. He was scrolling through something on the screen.

"That's . . . odd," he said, his voice confused. "I'm reading elevated hormone levels in your blood. Let me see. Um. _Hm_."

"What's it mean?" Zoe asked.

"Well, the hormones in particular are related to . . . ." he looked up, then at Zoe's stomach.

She froze, and then met his eyes, and they both understood, even though she couldn't make heads or tails of the diagram on the screen.

"Well, that's . . . unexpected," Simon said, his words a tremendous understatement.

* * *

The door to her bunk was closed, and Shepherd Book rapped on the transparent panel lightly. He didn't hear a response on the other side, and shifted the tray of breakfast in his off hand. The warm amber light that would indicate she was up wasn't on.

"River?" he called quietly. "Are you awake? We missed you at breakfast this morning." There was a long period of silence, and with a frown, he slid the door open.

Her lights were indeed off, and he found the girl curled up in her bed in a tight ball, the sheets and blankets coiled tightly around her. For a moment, he was about to just leave the food there and let her rest, but then Book saw her eyes, open and alert. She was staring at the wall with a blank expression, and he saw red tingeing the edges of her eyelids, and dried tears on her face.

"River," he said, stepping closer to her. "Are you okay?"

"Bad night," she murmured, and seemed to tighten up even more as he got closer. He caught the gesture, and settled back, putting the tray on the nightstand beside her.

"Bad dreams?" he asked, and she shook her head slightly.

"Just a bad night," she repeated.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked. She was silent for a few moments, and then seemed to loosen up a little. Her eyes moved to look at him directly.

"You know," she said after a few seconds. For a moment, the preacher was confused by her meaning, and then realized what she was talking about. He nodded, a bit sheepish.

"I know _something_, yes," he replied. He gestured toward the edge of the bed. "May I?"

She rolled over beneath the sheets, nodding, and he sat down. One of her hands poked out from under the sheets and grabbed a biscuit off the tray. He reached up and slid the door closed, so they could speak in confidence.

"It said you were an empath," Book finally told her. She chewed the biscuit blankly for a while, and then nodded. Her eyes became unfocused again, and she chewed mechanically. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know," she said, quietly. She closed her eyes for a couple of seconds, and shook a bit. "I don't know what they did to me." Book immediately knew he'd brought up bad memories, and cursed himself for being so forward.

"No, its . . . ." she said quickly, opening her eyes again and exhaling. She nibbled on the biscuit a bit, and after swallowing, she carefully set it back on the tray. Her hands rose up in front of her eyes.

"They wanted to know what I could see," she said, after a second. "They would . . . needles, in my eyes. Ask me what the colors sounded like. What they _tasted_. Wanted to - to _know_."

She closed her eyes again, and shook once more, a bit more violently this time, and Book reached forward, grabbing her little hands and holding them in his own.

"Its okay, River," he said, letting her hear the gentleness in his voice. "You don't have to talk about it if it hurts."

She stopped shaking after a couple for seconds, and opened her eyes. They glistened with a bit of moisture.

"I've got a headache," she mumbled. "Too much scrumpy." In spite of the delicate situation, he laughed at the way she spoke. River managed a slight smile, and then looked past the preacher, toward the door. He turned as well, and heard a knock.

"Hey, Albatross." Mal's clear and loud voice was a stark contrast to the confidential quiet of a moment before. "You awake yet?"

"She is, Captain," Book called, standing up and releasing the girl's hands. There was a moment of surprise outside, and the door cracked open a bit. Mal peeked inside, confused, and then saw River still bundled up in her sheets, and the other signs.

"You okay?" he asked her, and she nodded slowly.

"Just a bad night," Book assured him, and he mulled over that an instant, before nodding and stepping back. Book gave River another look, which she returned, managing a reassuring smile to him, and he took his leave. Once the door slid shut outside, Mal turned to Book.

"She have an episode or such?" he asked as they walked up the passage toward the common room, and Book shook his head.

"How much did she have to drink last night?" he asked instead.

"Lot more than she should have, I guess," Mal replied. Book gave him a look, and he raised his hands defensively. "Hey, I didn't give the drink to her. She put back two before I could even find her." Book's scowl remained, and Mal continued on.

"And I'll have you know, the moment I found her like she was, I took her and kept her outta harm's way," Mal added. Book shrugged, letting the matter go.

"I think it might be more than a hangover," the Shepherd said. "Was she doing anything last night, aside from unsupervised drinking?"

Mal hesitated, and the Shepherd immediately realized he'd hit something when Mal didn't reply right away. The Captain was quiet, rubbing his chin, and shook his head.

"Nothin' in particular I could say, Shepherd," he offered. Book crossed his arms and gave him his best "'fess up, son" look. He stared back, and quickly realized what Book wanted.

"No," Mal said, quickly. He pointed a finger at the Shepherd emphatically, countering the "'fess up" stare with his "I'm the _gorram_ Captain" voice. "_No_. I ain't talkin' about this."

"So, _something _did happen last night," Book said. Mal shook his head.

"As far as I'm certain, nothing happened," Mal said. "If something _did_ happen, you'll have to ask those it did happen to, um, happen to. 'Cause I'm not about to go blabbin' about somethin' I most definitely didn't see."

Book sighed and nodded. He understood confidentiality, but at the same time, Mal's unwillingness to speak on the matter bothered him. It was something that he didn't feel comfortable talking about, and there were quite a few things Mal was certainly untalkative regarding to. All of them were personal matters, and many of them could have been bad.

For half an instant, Book wondered if Mal had taken advantage of River's doubtlessly inebriated state, but he immediately quashed that, and felt a little guilty thinking of that himself. There were few things Malcolm Reynolds held sacred on his boat, and two of them were the young women he'd silently sworn to protect.

"Perhaps I'm acting out of turn," Book remarked, and Mal nodded.

"Maybe you are, preacher," he replied. "Maybe this is just-"

He was cut off as the ship-wide intercom squealed.

_"Attention," _came the voice of Mal's second. _"This is Zoe. I need all crew to the common room."_

Mal looked around, seeing the two of them were standing in the very place she'd indicated.

"Well, saves us some walking," he remarked, and the infirmary door slid open. Zoe and Simon stepped out, and paused, seeing Mal and Book already present.

"That was quick," the doctor deadpanned. Mal shrugged.

"Well, 'ccording to Wash," he said, "I _am_ ninja."

* * *

The rest of the crew filtered in one by one. Inara arrived first, dressed up as always, as if she remained in a permanent state of elegance and poise. In contrast was Kaylee, who, despite the early hour planet-side, was already marked by grease and had her hair a bit frazzled. Flash goggles sat on her forehead, and her hair was done up in a rough bun.

Jayne was bleary-eyed and nursing a mighty hangover, but seemed awake enough. Mal had spotted him wandering off with companionship last night, which explained a lot. Wash was also tired, his hair unkempt; he'd pulled an all-nighter on the bridge, apparently after returning to the boat with Zoe for alone time. He had a mug of caffeine in hand, and yawned as he came down the stairs.

River, it seemed, didn't feel like getting up.

"So, uh, yeah?" Jayne asked, yawning.

"Where's River?" Simon asked after a moment.

"Had a rough night," Mal said. "Talkin' of a bad headache and such."

"I should go check on her," he said, concern creeping into his voice. He glanced to Zoe. "Can you . . . ?"

"Sure, go ahead," she replied, nodding, and he moved off down the corridor.

"So, what's goin' on?" Kaylee asked, wiping her hands off on a towel. Zoe looked around the room at each of the crewmembers, and her gaze settled on Wash for a few moments. He yawned, and then realized he was being stared at.

"Something in my teeth?" he asked. "Am I sprouting gnomes all of a sudden?"

"No, dear," Zoe replied, sighing. She looked down at the deck, and then back up to the rest of the crew. Best make it blunt and simple, she figured.

"I'm expecting."

Dead silence filled the common room, broken after a heartbeat by a sudden, joyous gasp from Kaylee as her mind processed Zoe's words. A ripple of understanding spread around the room; Book and Inara looked pleasantly surprised, smiles forming on their faces. Mal just stared, and she could see the undercurrents of disbelief, shock, and fear waging a very covert back-alley war underneath his face. Wash blinked once, twice, and then his jaw dropped open.

Jayne's brow furrowed in momentary confusion.

"What are we expectin'?" he asked. Everyone looked toward him, save Wash, who stepped across the room toward Zoe, trying to come to grips.

"You're serious?" Wash said, mind racing. "This isn't a bad joke, like something I'd say?"

"No, dear, it isn't," she replied, smiling, and he dropped the cup of caffeine, which clattered away on the floor, before wrapping his wife up in an enormous hug. They both started laughing as they spun around.

"Someone gonna clarificate matters here?" Jayne asked after a few seconds.

"Zoe's _pregnant_, Jayne," Kaylee said, plain and simple. He froze in place, eyes becoming unfocused as he processed that.

"You mean . . . uh . . . well . . . _gorram_," he said, trying to come to terms with that.

"Oh, God, how long have you known?" Wash was asking, still hugging his wife.

"Just learned a few minutes ago," she replied. "Doc took a blood sample. Says its about two weeks or so along."

"This is . . . oh, God, this is . . . ." he trailed off, and hugged Zoe again. "I'm gonna be a daddy!"

As Wash spoke, Zoe looked across the room to the Captain, in order to judge his reaction. She knew he would have the most negative reaction to this, but she figured he could be brought around.

But then she found that, in the chaotic burst of celebration, Mal had vanished.

* * *

Simon found River was starting to untangle herself from her sheets when he arrived at her bunk, but one look at her eyes told him she'd had a difficult night.

"I'm okay," she protested his attempts to examine her, but the quiet way she spoke, as opposed to her usually more forceful protests, told him otherwise. Fortunately, he'd brought a few medicines with him, and recognized the obvious symptoms of a hangover.

"Yes, that splitting headache you're feeling is perfectly normal," he replied, taking out a vial of painkillers. She was starting to eat some of her breakfast, and took the pills without question. A couple of minutes later, the pained look on her face started to subside, the medicine taking its effect, and her face brightened a little.

"So, what happened last night?" he asked, sitting down on her bed. She frowned as she ate.

"Mephon eskn mphat," she replied, chewing her food. Simon rolled his eyes.

"You _know_ to swallow before you talk," he admonished. She was just trying to annoy him, as usual, and was succeeding at it. She swallowed a few seconds later.

"Everyone is asking that," she said, much more clearly.

"So, what did happen?" he asked again. "I know you apparently got drunk, if only because of your hangover."

"You got drunk too," she shot back. Simon frowned, pushing past that. She was dodging around him, but he had to admit she was right.

"True, I should have been looking after you," he said, and she smiled again.

"Okay," River said. "You were looking after Kaylee. I'll make an allowance for that."

Outside, they heard sudden cries of happiness, and River looked away, distracted.

"Little Wash clones," she muttered, and Simon sighed.

"Yes, that's true," he said. "But, what you were doing last night with alcohol-"

"Mal's angry."

Simon paused, getting annoyed by her refusal to directly answer him, but then caught a shift in her tone and expression, both of which became distant and unsettled.

"Why? What would the captain be so mad about?"

"Complications," she said.

Simon looked out the door, still hearing the exciting chatter of the rest of the crew, and then looked back to River.

"The captain is always angry," he said, shrugging.

"You should talk to him," she said, and he laughed at the absurdity of that.

"I don't think that's going to work," he said. "Every time I talk to the captain while he's angry, I get punched."

"Not this time," River replied.

"Why?"

"If he hits you, I'll break his elbows."

Well, he couldn't argue with that logic.

* * *

Five minutes later, Simon found the Captain sitting on the bridge in the pilot's chair, one hand on his chin as he glared out the front windows, as if they owed him money. The doctor considered leaving him be, but knew that someone had to talk with Mal, and he was under no illusions as to how Mal would have reacted to the news. Inara or Book would be better, but maybe . . . .

"Captain," Simon said, walking up the stairs between the two stations. Mal glanced toward him, and then looked down at the consoles, pretending to read them for something important.

"Doc," he muttered. "How's your sister?"

_"River _is fine," Simon replied immediately, putting emphasis on her name. He hadn't heard Mal call her such in a long while. The Captain frowned at his tone of voice, but didn't reply. "She must have had a bad dream, remembered things she shouldn't be dwelling on. That hangover she picked up isn't helping, but I gave her some headache medicine, so she's back to her usual state of mind. Won't give me a straight answer when I ask her a question, so she's definitely acting like my sister _should_."

"Well, good," Mal said. "I'm gonna need a pilot soon, and mine's distracted."

"Why?" Simon said. "If I may ask?"

Mal turned his gaze toward the doctor, and looked as if he would shoot him where he stood. For his part, Simon didn't back down; he'd long ago decided that he wasn't afraid of Mal's temper.

There was a long stretch of tension, before Mal looked away, grumbling something.

"If its any consolation, it caught me by surprise, too," Simon offered. "I've heard them talking about trying to have a child before, but I don't think this was entirely intentional."

"None of its intentional," Mal replied, resuming his hate at the forward windows. "They're all cavorting about in the hold below, laughing and such, and we've got a job to do today, and just . . . ." Mal spun, slapping a data-pad on the console across the room.

Simon had seen him lose his temper often enough to know Mal lashed out physically when he was upset. The doctor himself had been the target of more than one such outburst. Everyone else was happy about the miracle that had taken place, except for Mal and possibly Jayne, and Simon could guess why.

"You don't want us to have kids on the ship," he said, bluntly, getting it out into the air, and Mal grumbled.

"There's enough difficulty taking care of your sis- _River_," Mal exhaled, and looked back out the windows.

"This _is_ going to make things more interesting," the doctor remarked, and Mal grunted angrily.

"As if we ain't got enough troubles already heaped on us," he growled.

And that was it. As obvious and clear as it could be. Simon knew Mal hated complications, and _what_ a complication this was.

"I do agree, somewhat," Simon offered, and Mal looked his way again, this time with a touch of confusion. "We've got more than our fair share of problems, already, and a child is definitely going to complicate things further. But - and I think this is important - I know that, in this case, we can overcome it."

"My boat ain't a nursery," Mal said after a moment. "We've got enough troubles without having a tiny, helpless little person being tossed into the mix."

Simon nodded, understanding Mal's concerns.

"Ya'll coulda warned me ahead of time," Mal said, fixing Simon with a death glare.

"It was Zoe's decision to tell everyone," Simon replied. "We only learned about it a few minutes before you did. She made the call to be direct and honest with everyone, rather than try to cover it up. And I _think_ that you should be grateful for her honesty."

Mal seemed to quietly recoil at that. He looked back at the doctor, and Simon took a chance to get through that armor of anger and belligerence he liked to put up.

"Also," he said, "I think this is finally a chance for us to do something right."

Mal stared back Simon, and for the first time since he'd come onto the bridge, his expression wasn't upset - it was curious. Angrily curious, but curious all the same.

"What do you mean, doctor?"

"We're not just a crew," Simon said, shrugging. "We're family. A very dysfunctional family, that tends to butt heads and exchange blows with alarming regularity, but a family nonetheless. And a family needs to grow and expand and prepare for the next generation."

Mal was silent, meeting the doctor's gaze, and Simon took that as a cue to continue.

"And to tell the truth, with everything that's been happening, between Wash and Zoe, and now me and Kaylee, and maybe even you and . . . . well, anyway. This was bound to happen, us bringing new life into the world, and I think its a good thing. Its going to make our lives a lot more interesting, but its going to be worth it. A chance to move forward."

Mal looked away, toward the windows once more, but he was no longer plotting to annihilate them and their relations. He was silent for several long minutes, and Simon was about to stand up, when Mal spun around in his chair.

"I don't like this," he said, his tone blunt and clear. "But even though this is my boat, some decisions ain't mine." He jumped to his feet and walked down the crew corridor, with Simon scrambling to keep up.

The rest of the crew were still in the common room, gushing over Zoe, save for Jayne, who seemed positively baffled at the happiness of the whole thing. River had apparently emerged at some point, sitting on the couch beside Jayne, smiling at the sight before her.

The laughter and commotion died down a bit as Mal made his way back into the room, Simon at his heels. He looked around the room, and nodded to River, then looked to Zoe.

"Sir," she said. "You disappeared."

"Ninja captain," Wash added, to a couple of chuckles.

"Sorry about that," Mal offered. "Had to think a bit. Considered the situation, and how something of this sort, with all the repercussions and the like, would affect us all. Had a little help in that regard." He glanced back to Simon, who had slipped up beside Kaylee.

"So, Zoe," he said, looking back to his second. "You ready for this?"

"Honestly, sir," she said, shrugging tiredly. "I've been wanting this for a long while. Didn't expect it so soon, but . . . ."

"Things happen," Mal said, nodding. "What about you, Wash? You want this? You ready for this?"

"Well," Wash said, running a hand through his hair. "Honestly, a few months back I was opposed to it, simply because the life we lead. But now . . . ." He reached up to his chest, touching the hidden scar he'd gotten on Mr. Universe's moon, and looked to Zoe. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm ready for this."

Mal nodded, and looked around the room at the rest of his crew.

"Cap'n," Jayne piped in. "Don't we get say in-"

"Shut up, Jayne," Mal said. "This is going to cause us some difficulties, but as someone just told me, they might . . . might _just _be worth it. Tell the truth, the prospect of having a little wailing mini-Wash on the boat strikes terror into my very bowels, but I figure I got eight more months to get used to the notion."

He walked toward Zoe, and put both hands on her shoulders. He opened his mouth to say something, then paused, and finally, he gave her a big, warm, and honest smile.

"Congratulations," he said.

"Thank you, sir," she replied, and for the first time in recent memory, Mal pulled her into a thick, tight hug. Cheers and clapping filled the room as they broke away.

With that, he stepped away from his second and headed back up the stairs. It was a few seconds before he realized he was still wearing that smile, and decided it really _was_ honest.

Mal found his way back to the bridge, and settled into the pilot's chair. He leaned back, looking out the windows, and considered Simon's words and advice. This was going to make life extra-crazy, but that wasn't always a bad thing. He had enough crazy on his boat already, adding more to the mix couldn't hurt.

It was in the middle of this that he heard bare feet padding on the decking behind him, and Mal didn't need to look up.

"Captain Hammer has a sensitive spot," she mumbled, settling into the co-pilot's chair.

"Don't go blabbin' to anybody about it, Albatross," he replied, and River smiled.

"Look," he said, after a bit. "I got a notion who sent the Doc up to talk to me. I know I had some unhappy thoughts and such about Zoe's . . . condition, and I know that they weren't proper." He glanced over to the girl who he knew the mask wouldn't work on. She stared back, still smiling.

"Its fine," she murmured, curling up in her seat. He nodded, a slight grin appearing on his own face.

Well, if _she_ could forgive him for being him, that was good enough for Mal.

* * *

_Serenity_ rumbled across the skies over Corinth, heading south from the township they'd helped out. The dry, brown deserts and badlands they'd been flying over during the pursuit two days ago were replaced with thick green grasslands and rolling hills, with a few patches of woodland here and there. The Firefly was light one shuttle; Inara had already departed to see her client.

"So, in return for doin' the job, we get another job," Jayne summed it up.

They were all gathered in the cargo bay for Mal's brief on the job. Jayne had taken up a spot against some large equipment crates, where he was furiously leaning with a mighty slouch. River was perched atop the crates above him, feet dangling over his head. Simon and Kaylee were seated together on a couple of ammunition crates across the way, while Zoe and Wash were sitting on the stairs. Book was the only other freestander, excepting Mal, who paced in the middle of the bay.

"Not quite," Mal said. "We did get our food stores and fuel restocked, and that's not nothin', plus a bit of cash. Important part-"

"We didn't get chocolate," River said, and Mal looked up to her. She fixed him with a glare like it was his fault. He breezed past her comment just as quickly.

"Important part," he said, "is that the locals gave us leave to strip this agro-station got abandoned some time back."

"What's so valuable about it?" Wash asked.

"Kaylee?" Mal asked, nodding toward her, and she piped up.

"Two years back, it was state of the art, top of the line," she explained. "Extalarion B-24 moisture vaporators, G-72 farming drones, some new type of carbon-dioxide processors, the works. All of it in decent repair."

"Why did they abandon it?" Book asked. "Seems like something that expensive would have been worthwhile to maintain."

"All the technical specialists moved out," Mal explained. "Blue Sun ran the place, supplied food goods and such to the locals, until some shifting took place in corporate politics off-world. No idea what, but it ended with all the people who worked there shipping out."

"They didn't strip it themselves?" Wash asked, and Mal shook his head.

"Scrapping got tied up in legal disputes, and they wrote the whole thing off a year back. Locals own it through rule of arms, but they don't have the know-how to use the place. Just ride out every few months to pick the orchards. Fair bit of their last harvest is in our holds as of yesterday. Most of the tech there is obsolete now with new farming equipment being produced."

"But the older equipment is still worthwhile to the right buyers," Zoe said, and Mal nodded.

"There's a lot of folks on worse-off worlds who'll pay solid coin for slightly outdated farm tech the Alliance won't give them," Mal said. "So we go in, rip out all the useful pieces ain't broke down, and sell 'em. Simple work."

"Gettin' paid with more work," Jayne repeated, scowling.

"You could stay in your bunk, Jayne," Zoe offered.

"Hey, I ain't averse to coin," Jayne said, "I just like my coin quicker than later."

"How legal is this?" Simon asked.

"Of the non variety," Mal said. "Locals don't own it legally, but they pick the orchards 'cause no one else is and the Alliance doesn't care. But the place is technically owned by Blue Sun still, and they'd raise issue with us making profits off their tech without a cut of it. Good news is, the Alliance is too busy to notice us bitty folk."

That much was true enough; between the loss of almost an entire quadrant's naval forces over Miranda, the subsequent unrest forcing the Alliance to step up patrols in troubled areas, and the revelation regarding the Reavers, forcing the Alliance to devote fleets to hunting the pirates' remnants down, they hadn't seen an Alliance vessel since they'd blasted off of Persephone last month.

"So, we should be there in a bit," Mal said. "Don't expect any problems this time around, unlike our last salvage job."

"_Jobs_," Simon added. "Plural."

"All of 'em," Kaylee pitched in.

"Yeah, but . . . " Mal paused. "Statistically speaking . . . the chances of bad things happening this time are . . . well, they're awful unlikely." He glanced around to his crew. "Hey, _I'm_ optimistic!"

"That's not terribly reassuring, Mal," Wash pointed out.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Mal said, glaring his way. He glanced back toward Simon. "Also, Doctor, I wanted to make sure that, um . . . ." He looked between Simon and Zoe.

"It shouldn't be a problem," Simon said, catching his meaning. "We've talked about it, and strenuous labor shouldn't put undue stress on her this early into the pregnancy. There's the possibility of a miscarriage in case of particular trauma, but most miscarriages only happen due to chemical or genetic factors at this early stage. Later on, she'll need to cut back on strenous labor, but right now-"

"So, I can help out," Zoe helpfully finished, and Simon nodded.

"Yes," he said. He glanced around the room, to see confused faces on Mal and Jayne, but the captain covered his end up pretty well.

"Well, that's one less complication," Mal said, pretending he fully understood. "Wash, ETA?"

"Another hour," the pilot replied. "I've got us moving in low-power mode, otherwise we would have been there by now, but with our fuel issues . . . ."

"No need to wake up everyone this hemisphere anyhow," Mal said. "Got enough enemies in this sector as it is."

* * *

_"You see them?"_

Ott's voice chirped in Mitch's ear as the air buffeted past the outside of his mule. The little hovercraft was equipped with an oversized engine that let him keep up with a vessel that was moving at such a comparatively sedate pace. He peered through the optical goggles he had set up before him, and slowly grinned.

"I see 'em," he replied. "Firefly-class, looks like its made of chewing gum and prayers, about thirty minutes from marker two-seven-four. Moving with low-grade atmospheric maneuvering thrusters, probably to save fuel."

_"Good, that gives us a little more time to prepare," _Ott said over the radio. _"Remember, people, we'll need to be patient for this to play out right. No one moves until I give the signal."_

A chorus of acknowledgements came in over the radio.

_"And check your fire," _Ott added, emphatically. _"We need them alive, if we're going to collect on Niska's bounty."_

* * *

_-_

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**Well, that's a twist.

Zoe's pregnancy was an idea I had when I was originally laying out this story last year, and was actually going to come up in the Unfinished Business story arc. Of course, back then Wash and Book were still dead like they'd been in the actual canon, so I needed to have it show up early on to make sense. The pregnancy itself is, naturally, going to be a long-term affair for our crew to deal with.

For those of you who haven't read them, Ott and his crew are from the Serenity comic _Those Left Behind_, and do a little bit of menacing Mal's crew during a bank job early on. Most of Ott's crew remained unnamed in the comic, so I went ahead and gave the crew names and personalities (beyond "psycho bitch with giant machinegun" and "freaky guy with knives") Ott and his people are going to be the major villains in this story arc.

Until next chapter . . . .


	25. Chapter Three: The Soldiers

**_Author's Note: _**Riverthink in this chapter.

* * *

_**Chapter Three: The Soldiers**_

"Pretty," Wash said, looking over the abandoned farming station below. "What part do we blow up first?"

"None of it," Mal replied as they circled around the valley. "Jayne, you hear me? We're not blowing up any of it."

"Yeah, yeah," Jayne muttered, standing behind him in the bridge doorway.

"And no setting things on fire, either," Mal added, and Jayne grunted like a petulant schoolboy.

"Should at least secure the grounds," Zoë added from the ops station, and Mal nodded. He glanced at the display by River's station, showing a rough sensor map of the valley.

There were two large agri-domes, both about two hundred meters across, side-by-side, and a low, three-hundred meter long greenhouse next to them. A range of windmills were set up on one side of the valley, with power lines running down to the short spire of the central power plant in the middle of the complex, between the three buildings. A few once-tilled fields spread about the perimeter, now overgrown with a mixture of wild vegetables and grass.

"Okay, here's the deal," Mal said, pointing. "Zoë and Jayne, you two are gonna split up and check the perimeter. I'll help Kaylee get the mule prepped for transport. Might see if the Shepherd wants to help you two look about. Wash has got the boat."

"Me?" River asked.

"You an' Doc are going to check the buildings," he added, "but after I figured I'd let you two stay back at the ship 'less you're needed. Which, by the by, I hope we won't."

She nodded, not bothered by that. If they needed Simon's skills, something would have gone wrong, and if they needed River'sparticular talents, things would have gone _very_ wrong.

"Going to jinx us, Captain," Zoë said, and Mal shrugged.

"Ain't spoken on particulars," he replied.

"Just means we ain't gonna know what we're gettin' jinxed by," Jayne grumbled.

"You are very _up_ today," Wash added as he brought them down. Jayne grumbled and stepped out of the bridge, followed by Mal a moment later.

"Keep an eye out, hon," Zoe added, squeezing Wash's shoulder, and left as well, heading down to the bay.

It was warm on this day, though that was to be expected, as it was Corinth's summer cycle. The moon had a thicker than average atmosphere to compensate for its lower gravity and weak magnetic field. Athens hung in the air above them as they clomped down the ramp, a green-white ball of gas lazily spinning in the distance.

Jayne and Zoë were first out, weapons in hand but not expecting trouble. Once they found themselves looking over the complex, Jayne grunted, peering though his sunglasses.

"Looked smaller up above," he said, walking forward, Vera on his shoulder. He lifted a pair of magnoculars to his eyes.

"Indeed," Book said, walking behind them. Unlike the others, he wasn't armed. "It'll take time to cover this much ground, even with three sets of eyes."

"No one knows we're out here 'cept the yokels back in Hawkvale," Jayne added. "Don't 'spect nothin'."

"No excuse to get sloppy," Zoe replied, setting off. As they moved out, Jayne pointed toward the power plants up on the valley top.

"Got good cover up there," he said. "If I was gonna snipe us, it'll give good line of sight on the whole valley. I'll take a look up thataway, fine by ya'll."

"Go ahead," Zoë replied, and he set off double-time. They watched him rumble off, and started moving around the buildings. Book spoke up again after a bit.

"For someone who isn't expecting trouble, he seems oddly eager to get moving," Book remarked as they started off around the edges of the tilled fields.

"Jayne does take his job seriously," Zoë said. "But you're right. He has been acting more serious than usual lately."

"You think he suspects something?" Book asked.

"Jayne is always suspicious," Zoë said. "But after what he an' River went through with Niska, he's been a lot more jumpy."

"A near-death experience like that will do such things," Book said.

"Not entirely sure it was _his_ near-death, either," Zoë mused. "He's been extra tolerant of a girl he seems to hate."

"I don't think its in him to hate her, at least not anymore," Book said. "You know that bonds forged in times of adversity form fastest and are the hardest to break."

"If it makes Jayne less horrific, I'm all for it," she said, understanding what he meant. Zoë and Mal were probably the two most loyal people on the ship, and that bond went back past the better half of a decade. It was no surprise that something similarly traumatic would bond even people like Jayne and River who mutually hated each other.

They walked on for a while longer. They were cutting across a green field of overgrown knee high grass when Book spoke up again.

"So, how long have you two been trying?" he asked, and Zoë gave a quick, quiet laugh.

"Preacher," she said, glancing back.

"Sorry, I don't mean to pry," he replied quickly. "And I'm not looking for details of the conception, either." She laughed again.

"A few months," Zoë admitted after a few moments of walking. "After Haven, and the fight against the Reavers, Wash and I figured that we were taking things too slowly, and we might have missed out on something beautiful." There was a heartbeat's silence. "We came so close to the wire back there . . . ."

She paused, looking away, and Book waited for her to continue. It was so unlike her to seem this distant, and for a moment he saw a flicker of vulnerability in her stance and face.

"I nearly lost him," she whispered, and then straightened herself back out. Zoë hefted her rifle and started moving again with a renewed purpose. After a moment, Book followed after her, and quietly wondered just what would have happened if she had lost her husband at that terrible point in their past.

* * *

The mule was being lowered as Simon and River stepped off the ramp. They could hear Mal and Kaylee yelling back and forth as they got the transport ready. He was clad in casual short sleeves, with a shirt he'd borrowed from Wash, while River wore one of her less flashy dresses. At her waist she wore the .45 she'd taken to, though it bothered Simon to see her armed in the first place. He didn't think he'd ever get used to seeing her wearing a pistol, especially after what happened to her the last time she'd carried a weapon.

"Butterflies," River mumbled, and Simon glanced her way through his red-tinted sunglasses. There were some flower patches growing about a hundred meters off, with little flecks of color flitting about overhead. He smiled at the way River spoke, and the look on her face as she peered their way.

"How long has it been since we've seen those?" he asked, and followed her as she scampered off towards them.

"Hey, Doc," Mal called, and the doctor paused, looking back. Mal was coming down the ramp, slipping on his gloves while the mule was starting up behind them.

"Ya'll don't wander too far afield," he said, following Simon as they walked across the grass toward the domes.

"Well, there's nowhere for us to wander to out here," Simon replied, looking back to River to keep her in sight. "I don't think there's any hill people to kidnap us this time."

"Yeah, that ain't my worry," Mal said. "I need ya'll to look about inside the buildings, remember? Just make sure nothin' is terribly out of place."

"Simple enough," Simon said. He glanced toward his sister, who was much closer now, in the middle of the flower patch and gazing at the butterflies. "If I can keep River on track."

"Yeah, just don't get any drink into her," he said. "She does funny things."

"Really," Simon said. "Like what?"

"Well, she might start ki - ow!" A rock thudded off his shoulder. River, who was still staring at the butterflies, lowered her hand quickly.

"Cows!" Mal said quickly, nodding.

"Cows?" Simon said, confused.

"Tippin' cows," Mal continued. "All manner of amusing sorts of things like that, you know."

"River, _tipping_ cows?" Simon said, the mental image not processing in his brain.

"They make funny sounds when they fall over," she called back. "'Moooooo,' _wumph_." She made a gesture with her hands, pantomiming the act of bovine collapse to illustrate her point.

"Were there even any cows in Hawkvale to tip over?" the doctor asked, looking back toward Mal with a disbelieving tone.

"Lots!" Mal said, clapping his hands. "And she was full of it. Why don't you give her a good seeing to about that, I got work to do." Mal quickly retreated before Simon could protest, and he turned back to his sister, whose hands were flicking about, trying to grab the little white butterflies.

"You were . . . tipping cows?" he asked, still not believing what Mal had said.

She giggled, and then moved away, toward the nearest building.

"Come on," she called back. "Work, before we play!"

Simon sighed and followed after his sister, shaking his head. Well, at least she was in a good mood.

* * *

The wind felt good on his face up here. It was strong. His legs burned a little bit from the exertion of climbing up the hill, but now he could see why the engineers had put the windmills up this high. He figured this was probably a spot with strong wind currents and such; his folks back home had a couple of smaller windmills of their own to power the farm.

Jayne Cobb looked over the valley through his sunglasses, and started walking along the hills overlooking the valley. He paused from time to time, scanning the hills with his magnoculars. Thermal mode wasn't useful at all, warm as it was and with so many small heat sources from small animals and such, but electromagnetic spectrum wasn't showing any returns, and that was good. Meant they were the only folks about.

Usually. Machines were like to girl-folk, not to be trusted.

He swept the goggles back over the valley, checking his crew.

There. He could see Mal and Kaylee rolling out on the mule, heading for the nearest equipment shed to start clearing things out. Over another hundred meters or so he spotted Doc and River heading into an agri-dome. Shepherd and Zoë were moving opposite side of the valley.

He frowned. If he could see 'em, so could a sniper. Not that there was likely going to be one, but Jayne Cobb hadn't lived near to forty years in this line of work without being a suspicious sort. Had to keep his crew safe, after all.

Jayne paused, leaning up against the base of one of the windmills, and took a quick sip from the whiskey flask on his belt.

What was it Stitch had said, back on that shithole moon, about watchin' each others' back?

He shook his head. Stitch was dead. What he believed was dead too, lest Jayne Cobb keep it alive. The man he was back then was a slightly different man now. For one, he was gettin' paid better, and for another, he actually _liked_ this crew. Stitch had been an ass, and woulda' done the same.

Not like the folks he worked with now.

He took another quick nip from his whiskey flask, replaced it, and then shouldered Vera again, before resuming his patrol.

It was about ten minutes later, and he was halfway around the little valley, when he heard the gunshots.

* * *

Rust speckled the struts overhead. It _tingled_.

She frowned as she walked through the trees in the dome. There wasn't any wind in here; the glass blocked it out, making everything very still. Very **dead**.

"River?" Simon called, walking up behind her. She saw the pages in his mind slowly turning, the ink very straight and precise and complex. He was looking up at the glass rooftop.

"Its dead," she felt herself saying.

"What's dead?" he asked, as she threaded through the trees. Her sandals had been left at the door, and her toes tasted _warm dirt_. It was all fake. A basic facsimile of real life, contained in glass and concrete and steel.

"Its a dollhouse," she said. "Dressed up, lined up in rows. None of its real."

"What?" he asked, not comprehending.

She smiled inwardly. Simon was still Simon after so long. Bound up by logic and worry and things making sense. Kaylee was helping him, but he still didn't _feel_.

Mal, Jayne, Zoë, they _felt_. They had intuition, instinct.

"They locked the trees up," she said, working to make the _scents_ and _whispers_ make sense. "Put the forest in a house. Made it fake for food."

"True," Simon said, nodding, and she caught a glimmer of understanding. "It looks clear in here. Nothing out of the ordinary, though I'm wondering why the captain wanted us to look around."

Mal only wanted _her_ to look around, actually. Simon was her shepherd, but it was _her eyes_ that were searching.

There was a whistling echo in the air, something Simon couldn't hear. Electronic, she guessed. It slid across her perception, buzzing and scraping. It drew her after it, _strands_ tugging and pulling at her. Simon drifted after her, still looking around the fakeorchard.

The wind brushed her face as she stepped out of the dollhouse. Her eyes flicked across the domes, and centered on the spire of the power plant. The buzzing was coming from there, electrical scents tickling her ears and _whispering_ into her skin and hair. They pulled her closer.

She froze. **Something** was there.

No, not there in front of her, but somewhere nearby. An _awareness._

She turned and looked up, past the plant, toward the hills, and frowned. Now it was gone. Or was it still there, and she'd lost it?

River's head was protesting, the _skull_ tapping her brain painfully. She rubbed her temple, grumbling, and heard Simon's worry.

"River?" he asked, drawing closer.

"Okay," she mumbled, not wanting any medicine. She turned back toward the buzzing as he rummaged through his bag, and she looked up the spire. Pipes and cables _writhed_ underneath the outer plating, wires tracing the lines toward the windmills in the hills. Midway up the plant, she saw speckled paint, blue words on a wide sheet of metal, telling the words-

**cold**

_White walls, __**steel**__ halls, __dolls__ and _**needles**

_Faces. _**Voices**. masks blankness _screaming_.

_Buzzing_ against her skull, through the anesthetic, _**blades**_ and _cutting_, questions, _**things**_ _she didn't want_

_you're doing good, River_

Hands. **Blue hands**. Holding a _**blue star**_

_Faces. _One face. **Close, sorrow**, _**questioning**_

_I'll hold you close. I'm not letting them hurt you_

**deep underground, and I do not make a sound**

No. No, she wasn't _there_, she wasn't going _back_, to _that place_, where they _dig _in and _**cut**_ out pieces she _needed to be normal __**bastards **__**sons of bitches **_reaching toward her face and _closing around _her throat, **choking**, **hurting** her hurting _Jayne _hurting Simon hurting **Mal** hurting _Kaylee_ hurting _**EVERYONE**_, screaming no _no_ nonon_**on**__NO__**NONO**_!

Metal, in her hands. _**Power. **__Hate_. Her throat hurt as it kicked in her fingers. Shouts, hands, fear touching her, telling her to be calm. She lashed out, not letting the fingers deny her.

_not taking me back_

* * *

_"Shots fired!" _Zoë yelled over the radio as the echoing reports cut across the dome.

"Who's shooting?" Mal yelled, jumping off the mule. They'd parked next to a drone shed, and were loading up deactivated agri-bots when he'd heard the gunfire.

_"Not me," _Jayne called over the radio.

_"Not me," _Zoë added.

"Simon?" Mal called over the radio, and started running in the direction of the gunfire, his pistol in hand. No response. "Simon! River! Respond!"

_"Shots came from the power plant!" _Jayne added over the radio. Mal trusted his sharp mercenary ears.

_"Sounds like a handgun," _Zoë added. _".45 caliber." _Mal's heart clutched up. Doc hadn't been armed. That meant . . . _River_.

He dashed between two sheds, closing in with the plant, and heard more gunfire, and screaming. There was a pause, a screeching sob, and then more shots.

He ran around a corner, and saw the power plant. Lying in the dirt was Simon, clutching his throat and gasping for air, and standing over him was River.

Tears ran down her face, which was twisted in a mixture of rage, terror, and pain as she raised her handgun, firing it at the side of the building. She was screaming something incoherent, and Mal picked out a few words, mostly wild, sobbing curses.

"River!" he yelled, holstering his gun and running toward her. "_River_, snap out of it!"

She must have heard him, because she looked down, locking eyes with his, and leveled the pistol at Mal. He came to a dead halt and raised his hands to soothe her.

She stood there, trembling, tears still flowing from her face, sobbing even as she kept him right in her sights.

"Captain," she breathed. "Mal . . . ."

"River," he said, quietly and calmly.

"Run," she breathed. "Run away. They're _coming_."

"River . . . ." Mal said, holding his hands toward her, in a placating gesture he hoped she'd pick up on.

"They're coming!" she screamed, backing away from Mal. "Get _away _from me! They're coming with their _sounds_ and they're going to make you scream and . . . and _liquid_!"

She was getting hysterical. Panicking. He knew that tone well from his days as a sergeant, and knew how to counter it.

"_River_!" Mal yelled, in a voice he remembered from the war, when he saw shell-shocked soldiers locking up. "Put the gun down, _now_!"

She hesitated, and then shook her head, whirling around and pointing the weapon back toward the power plant.

"Have to . . . to keep them back!" she sobbed, and fired again into the air.

Mal dashed toward her while she was distracted. He was only a few meters way when she spun back, the weapon drooping, and the magazine clattered out of its well. She fumbled for more ammunition as he got closer, and then looked up, eyes widening.

_Sorry, _he thought, and his fist connected with her jaw.

She went down, _hard_, the pistol clattering away across the dirt. She rolled over, shock and confusion flickering over her face, and then she started to rise.

Mal knew River was just as dangerous unarmed as she was armed, and took a step back as the girl tried to recover from being belted across the face. His mind raced, his hand dropping to his holster, and he tried to remember the words.

_"Et . . . eta karoom na-"_

She kicked him in the sternum. He twisted with the blow, spinning around, his stomach hurting, and raised his arms instinctively. Her fists thudded against them, pain lancing up his forearms. _Gorram_, she hit _hard_, but Mal knew she was disoriented, uncoordinated, lashing out on automatic.

The last thing she had expected was for Mal to punch her.

"River," Simon was gasping, trying to stand up. She looked away from Mal for an instant, and he struck. A hard blow would probably be blocked, and end with a whole lot of pain on his part, so Mal instead simply used his sheer strength and size and bowled into River, wrapping his arms around her. She let out a gasp of shock as they tumbled to the ground, and she immediately started struggling. He locked his arms around her tight, pinning her limbs to her sides.

"Let me go!" she screamed, her voice so loud it hurt his ears.

"Not till you calm the hell down!" he bit back. She thrashed, shaking in his grip, and he pulled his head back as he realized she could still try to bite him. She didn't, though, and instead simply kept bucking against him, half-incoherent babbling demanding that he let go.

Then he realized she didn't _want_ to hurt him.

"River," he hissed. "River! Listen to me! _Listen to me_!"

She was still thrashing and struggling, worming her arms out of his grip, but as he held her tight, he saw her eyes focus. He saw a glimmer of awareness.

Tears trickled down her face.

"They're coming," she sobbed. "They're coming to hurt us. I _see _them! Hands of blue, hands of black, hands of brown, they're all coming for us!"

"River," Mal said, his voice firm and solid, driving against the madness. "No one's coming. Not here. I've got you. You're safe. You hear me in there? You're _safe_!"

"But you're not," she breathed, and suddenly her arms snapped out wide with a shocking show of strength. His own arms parted a hair, which was all she needed. Her head snapped forward, forehead meeting his, and he reeled backward. There was a twist, a shift of weight, and Mal found himself rolling away, no longer holding her.

She was diving for her gun.

_"Eta karoom na smech!" _Simon finally yelled, rising and stumbling, and Mal saw River grab her pistol. She turned, loading it, and raised it into the air.

Then she stopped, fell to her knees, and her eyes closed.

Mal caught her as she dropped, cradling the girl as peace finally touched her.

He cradled her body as the others got closer, and looked up at the power plant, and the Blue Sun sign, pockmarked with bullet holes.

* * *

"Did you see that?" Mitch whispered, thumbing his radio. He was hot underneath the ghillie suit, overlooking the valley and the small crew working below.

_"Something interesting just happened down there," _Ott said.

_"Looks like the crew is starting to move back toward the ship," _Si Quan added.

"Right," Ott added. "Good a chance as any. Move in. Do not engage until the signal."

_"Boo," _Selke whispered, his voice disappointed.

Mitch started to crawl forward, over the top of the hill. As he moved, he touched his radio again.

"Boss," he said.

_"Yeah?"_

"That girl, the little one who was shooting the sign?"

_"What about her?"_

"Okay, this is weird, but . . . I think she saw me."

_"Mitch, you're half a kilometer away on a hill wearing a ghillie suit. How the hell do you think she saw you?"_

"Just a feeling, boss," Mitch said, verbally shrugging. "Like she was lookin' right at me."

_"You're paranoid," _Ott replied, his voice dismissive. _"Get ready for some real work. This job is a million square, so don't get jumpy on me, understood?"_

"Right, boss," Mitch said, firming his jaw as he slid across the grass and bushes.

* * *

There was a lot of folks crowded in or around the infirmary, and most of them were in the way. Mal loomed over the main bed, while Simon finished checking River's unconscious body. Mal and Simon her back, though the captain could tell Jayne had been worried over her almost as much as the doc or Wash or Kaylee. He still hadn't shared anything about what they'd spoken of after pulling those two out of Niska's place, but he understood Jayne's awkward protectiveness.

The Captain looked up to his crew, who were all milling about and not doing anything useful aside from worrying.

"Doc needs room," he said, and gestured for the crew to begin leaving. He stopped Zoë and Jayne, pulling them back inside, and, after a few seconds, brought Book in as well.

"Doc, what the hell happened out there?" he asked. Simon shrugged, still keeping his eyes on his sister.

"No physical damage as far as I can tell," he said, "save for one monster of a bruise you left on her jaw."

"Wasn't sure if she was gonna shoot me or not," Mal said.

"No, I'm not accusing you of anything," Simon added over his shoulder. "But aside from that, no real trauma."

"She'll be okay, then?" Book asked, and Simon nodded.

"Judging by how these things have worked out in the past, some time asleep should get her back to normal," Simon said. "I'm going to give her a light sedative anyway. She should be back up on her feet in about an hour."

"You know what brought this about?" Zoë asked. Simon sighed, shaking his head.

"If I knew, I would have stopped her," Simon said. "She was walking toward the power plant, and started looking like she was upset. She said something about people taking her, then pulled her gun and started firing."

"She was shooting up the Blue Sun sign," Mal said.

"Girl's always had a problem with blue," Jayne muttered.

"Yes, she prefers you in red," Zoë deadpanned. He didn't reply, except to scratch his beard.

"Blue Sun," Book murmured, and Mal looked toward him.

"You know somethin', Shepherd?"

"No, not really," Book replied quietly, looking distant. Mal frowned, crossing his arms.

"Seems I recall someone was giving me a little lecture on honesty a while ago," he added, and Book turned to meet his gaze. There was a moment's silence.

"I suppose we all know a little too much to share," Book replied. He gestured to River, who Simon was injecting with a sedative. "I don't know anything concrete, but I have suspicions."

"Care to shed some light on them?"

"No," Book said, bluntly. "I don't." With that, he turned and departed from the infirmary, leaving Mal with his second, his mercenary, and his doctor.

"We gonna lock her up again?" Jayne asked, his tone a bit worried. A glare from Mal answered that question.

"Did you two get done with the perimeter?" Mal asked, and they both shook their heads.

"Stopped when we heard the gunfire," Zoë said. "Got about halfway done checking things out."

"So, we could have a regiment of Feds out there now celebratin' Chinese New Year and we wouldn't know about it," Mal said, and they nodded. "Well, let's fix that."

Thy filed out quickly, leaving Mal alone with Simon and the unconscious girl. Mal glanced out the door and then closed it, and Simon glanced up, noting they were sealed off from the others.

"She's gettin' worse," Mal said, and Simon slowly shook his head.

"I'm trying to remain optimistic," the doctor said, "I think this might have just been a bad day, and she's still suffering from post-traumatic stress. I definitely think that she was remembering her time in the Academy."

"That's bad enough," Mal said, rubbing his jaw. "We were lucky she didn't try shooting any of us. But next time, we might not be so lucky."

"You're a ray of good cheer, Captain," Simon deadpanned, sitting down across the bed from Mal.

"I'm tryin' to keep realistic, is all," he replied, looking at the sleeping girl's face. Truth was, he remembered when they had been in the Maidenhead, and River had pulled a gun from one of the thugs in the bar. She'd pointed it at him, and had Mal dead to rights, but for some reason had hesitated.

Of course, it said something that the only reason she'd gotten a chance to shoot him was because he'd held his fire as well.

"She doesn't go armed again," Mal said. "Not 'till I give leave. And we're gonna keep her on the boat for a little bit, 'least until this job is done."

"Okay," Simon said, agreeing with his decision.

Mal stood up, and started heading out of the infirmary, when Simon spoke up.

"Captain," he said, and Mal looked back.

"I know there weren't any cows in Hawkvale," he said. "So, what was River doing last night?"

"She tell you?" Mal asked, and Simon glanced to her.

"She wouldn't give me a straight answer. I'm worried that it might have something to do with what just happened."

Mal mused over that a moment, and weighed what he'd seen. If River hadn't told Simon, it meant she might have been uncomfortable with it getting out. He had a slight bruise on his shoulder that correlated that. On the other hand, he had a lingering suspicion that . . . .

"I don't think it does," Mal answered.

"I need to know-"

"I'm not at liberty to discuss," Mal replied. "If she wants to talk about it, she'll tell you about it. I look after mine, and that means I look after all their interests. Including personal."

Simon fell silent, and withdrew, accepting that.

"You gonna leave her here?" Mal asked after a few seconds.

"No," Simon said. "She'd be more comfortable in her room anyway."

He was about to reach down and pick her up when Mal stepped around and scooped River up into his own arms.

"I've got her, Doc," he said. "Don't worry. Not gonna drop her."

* * *

"Been an excitin' day," Kaylee muttered as she headed back across the overgrown fields. Behind her, Jayne grunted.

"'tween the gunfightin' and Zoë bein' knocked up, its been interesting," he grumbled. He stayed behind her, escorting the little mechanic back on her rounds, and she disappeared into the tool shed to begin packing up the valuable drones, and Jayne lingered by the doorway.

"You gonna help me or just stand there?" she asked.

"Just keepin' a lookout," Jayne said. "This place is gettin' me paranoid."

"Why?" she asked, packing up another drone.

"Well, I dunno," Jayne said. "River's gone loopy, _again_, and that sorta crazy puts a man on edge." He stepped away from the doorway, looking around, squinting in the glare.

"Besides, the place bothers me for other reasons. Like the bushes ain't where they're supposed to be."

"Huh?" she asked, looking back, and he pointed.

"That bush right there. I swear it was about halfway up the hill when we came out here. Now its down next to the field."

"Jayne, you're just gettin' stir-crazy," Kaylee said, scoffing at his paranoia. "Been cooped up on the boat too long."

"I'm serious," Jayne said, frowning mightily. "Feels like somethin's sneakin' about. Like I got eyes starin' right at me."

"Yeah, we've got lotsa ninjas runnin' round these parts," Kaylee muttered, and he scowled at her. She ignored him and went back to disassembling the drones.

"I'm gonna go have a look about."

"Fine," she called after him. "Keep an eye out for ninjas for me."

"Ha ha," he called back, disappearing outside, and trudged off.

Kaylee worked the next few minutes in silence, humming to herself as she worked, and tried to get her mind off what had happened with River. Truth was, it was bringing back memories of her cutting Jayne up, and then later on the run at Niska's space station. After all that had happened, she and Kaylee were still tight friends, and she was showin' nothing but cheer at Simon loosening up with Kaylee, even if that meant he was spending less time taking care of her. That was something Kaylee felt needed to be fixed, because she knew from personal experience that brothers and sisters needed to stay together, and River needed lookin' after more than anyone.

But thinking about family brought her back to her own sisters, and Kaylee wished she'd been able to spend more time with Ash back on Persephone. But they'd been in a rush, and Simon was so worried for her, like Wash was worried over Zoë so much.

That was the one piece of good news that was really keeping a smile on Kaylee's face. She had to wonder what they were going to name the kid, and she was already considering redecorating a passenger bunk into a nursery. Too bad Simon didn't have any ultrasound equipment, but maybe they could chip in and get one for the infirmary . . . .

Kaylee had finished loading up the last of the drones - those alone would be worth a small fortune - and was tying them down when she heard footsteps behind her.

"Jayne?" she called, and started to turn around, when something horribly cold and sharp nicked her throat.

Kaylee froze, gasping in shock as she felt a man standing beside her, a thin figure with stringy hair, and pale, almost white skin. He glared at her with hungry, dark eyes, and she saw he was naked from the waist up.

"Shhh," he whispered, his voice like a snake, and held a long, curved knife up against her throat. At his waist were a dozen more just like it.

Kaylee felt fear clutching her chest and shooting up her spine. For an instant, she flashed back to that time in the engine room, where she had found herself face-to-face with . . . with . . . .

_Jubal Early_.

The memory drained the strength from her limbs, and replaced it with uncontrolled shaking.

"Wh-who-" she stammered, remembering that voice, and those eyes, and the sheer helplessness of that moment, just like now.

"Shhh," the knife-wielding man hissed, more forcefully this time, and his other hand rose to his ear.

"Ott," Selke whispered, smiling. "I've got the mechanic."

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**Now, a truely genre-savvy villain would know that the moment you start threatening Kaylee, someone is going to hurt you. :P

As an aside, this chapter also has a little bit of foreshadowing that ties in with a particular event that happened earlier.

Now, that said, there's no further commentary on this chapter, except that the next couple of chappies are going to be quick and _vicious_. Alas, for Simon sedating his sister . . . .

Until next chapter . . . .


	26. Chapter Four: The Brigands

_**Chapter Four: The Brigands**_

"Hands."

She was shaking so hard that the knife was starting to cut into her neck. A tiny trickle of warmth ran down Kaylee's throat, and the thin, terrifying man scowled slightly as he saw the blood.

"Hands," he said, more forcefully, and Kaylee raised them, terror lancing through her. It was _just_ the same as when she'd been confronted with Early, only the danger was so much closer, so much more _real_. Early had dominated her with words and his presence, nothing more, but this man was so close, so silent, and the evil she saw smoldering in his eyes was just like that bounty hunter's.

"Turn around," he whispered, his voice a hungry rasp, and she found herself frozen in place. A horrible thought filled her: was he going to rape her, like Early had threatened to do?

"I won't repeat myself," he hissed, and the knife dug in deeper. Kaylee felt tears running down her cheeks as she forced herself to comply, and looked away from the man. She felt his fingers, thin and cold but terribly strong, wrap around one of her wrists and pull it behind her back. He did the same with her other arm, and then began to tie them together.

"Now, if you cry out, I'll slit your throat," he hissed into her ear. "We'd prefer you alive, but we can still make decent money off of your corpse." He pulled her back and started to turn toward the door-

_Zip-click._

-and found himself staring down the barrel of a very large weapon, referred to affectionately as Vera.

_"Wei, tien-sah do uh-muo." _

Kaylee saw Jayne.

Jayne saw Kaylee.

More importantly, Jayne saw Kaylee's blood, running down her neck, from the wound cut by the freaky little bastard's knife.

Then, Jayne Cobb saw _red_.

* * *

"Perimeter seems secure," Zoe said, walking toward Mal, her long rifle on her shoulder. He nodded, working to get some components Kaylee had earmarked loose from one of the agri-dome walls. "Only way anyone could have gotten in is if they slipped in while we were back inside the ship."

"Yeah, that's real likely," Mal said, pulling the component free. He looked over it, and then dropped it into the bag beside him, and wiped his brow. "Got a notion we head over there, start getting pieces from the power plant once Kaylee gets done with the drones."

"Sounds fair," Zoe replied.

"You seen the Shepherd anywhere?" Mal asked.

"Stayed back in the boat," Zoe said. "Said something about prepping lunch for us. Probably wants to keep an eye on River, too."

"I'll give a bit of thanks to that," Mal remarked, removing another pieces of gear and stowing it. "Work makes me-"

He spun, whipping his pistol out of its holster as he heard a sudden stream of gunfire.

"The hell-"

"Drone shed!" Zoe said, raising her rifle.

"Kaylee," Mal breathed, and started to run when the ground in front of him erupted into a cloud of flying dirt and shredded plants. He yelled out a wild curse and fell back as the ground continued to churn like liquid, throwing up a widening wall of dust.

"Assault cannon!" Zoe yelled, grabbing Mal and hauling him back behind the cover of the agri-dome. A moment later, rounds scythed past overhead, shattering glass all around them, and they retreated to avoid the rain of deadly shards.

"Where's that coming from?" Mal yelled as he clambered to his feet, Zoe spinning to cover their rear.

"Sounds like the power plant!" Zoe yelled, grabbing her radio. "Wash! Wash, do you read?"

Silence came back, and she cursed.

"Jamming," she shouted back as Mal tried to poke his head out of cover. Rounds walloped past, tearing up the ground behind him.

"Definitely the power plant," Mal hissed. Zoe's rifle erupted behind him.

"Contact!" she yelled, pumping the rifle and firing again, and Mal realized that this salvage job had just gone _very_ bad. As he should have expected.

* * *

_"I've got Reynolds pinned down," _Marietta called over the radio, garbled with the static of jamming. They only had one frequency that was designated to escape their jamming blanket, but it worked well enough.

"Don't kill him," Ott reminded her as he ran up the side of the greenhouse with a half-dozen men, their ghillie suits bouncing around them as they jogged.

_"I know the plan," _she hissed back, and he heard a protracted stream of fire from the enormous cannon she carried. _"Just make sure Quan is ready."_

_"I see them," _SiQuan added over the radio. _"Closing. Also, I think they got Bentlan."_

"Never liked him anyway," Ott muttered. They were getting close, and he readied the concussion grenade launcher he carried. "We're about to hit them. Get ready. Selke? You there?"

* * *

He was actually a hair shorter than Kaylee, and used that to his advantage, rolling around behind her. She stood there, frozen in horror, as Jayne stared down Vera's sights. Sunlight from the only window framed the mercenary where he stood.

"Let her go," he hissed, his voice low and dangerous, fighting to keep the _red_, all that constructive hatred, from making him do anything rash.

Selke didn't reply, instead peering around the side of Kaylee's head, a savage little smile on his lips.

"Where's the rest of Ott's crew?" Jayne growled, taking a step forward. Selke pulled back, dragging Kaylee with him, and pressed the knife against her neck. Jayne caught the hint.

'That's a good question," the little man whispered.

Jayne stared back at him, matching his gaze, and then suddenly ducked and spun around, dropping to one knee.

Three men, carrying assault rifles, stormed in through the shed's main door, and Jayne caught one in the chest with three rapid shots. He flew backward, tomato-sized holes erupting in his back as Vera's armor-piercing rounds punched through. The others stopped and took cover at the doorframe, firing their weapons, and Jayne rolled aside.

Pain blossomed up his arm, and he dove behind some barrels. He snarled and grabbed the knife Selke had thrown into his off-arm's bicep, and pulled it free. Raising Vera, he rose and sprayed a stream of fire at the doorway, and glanced to where Selke had Kaylee.

She lay on the floor, and for an instant Jayne had the horrified notion that he had killed her, but then she groaned and looked up. He dropped behind cover as blind shots ripped around the doorway, and fervently wished he'd thought to bring some grenades for his launcher.

Something loomed up over him, and Jayne snapped Vera up in time to deflect a stabbing knife. He spun the rifle around like a club, smacking Selke in the ribs as he crawled over the barrels, and the little man grunted, rolling across the floor. He scrambled to his feet before Jayne could bring the business end of his rifle to bear, and another knife flew out, nicking his gun-arm's elbow. The impact knocked off his aim just enough to let Selke dash forward, pulling out another knife, and Jayne snapped his off hand down to his belt.

Binky rose up, parrying one, two, three rapid slashes, and Jayne hopped back. He swept Vera before him, spraying with the rifle wildly, and Selke dropped to the floor to dodge the wild, unaimed stream of bullets. Jayne didn't expect to hit anything, and instead spun and leapt at the shed's window. He knew when he was at a disadvantage.

He crashed through the glass, and then gunfire sounded all around him as the two men from the shed door came around the corner. He could tell by the weight of his girl that Vera was empty. Not thinking, only acting, Jayne dropped the big girl and yanked out Boo, emptying the revolver's chambers at the two men, who ducked back behind the shed's corner.

Before they could return fire, he had scrambled for cover behind the shed, and broke into a dead run. No extra ammo for Boo, and the spare mags he wore were for Vera, which he couldn't reach now. With every step, pain ran through his chest, because he knew he'd abandoned both Vera and Kaylee back there.

Practicality overrode his feelings, and Jayne buried them. He had to rearm. That meant his bunk, or the gun locker. That meant _Serenity_.

"Don't worry, Kaylee," he hissed, legs pumping as he circled around toward serenity, seeing the rear of the ungainly ship looming up ahead. "I'll get my girls, and we're all comin' back for ya. Gonna tear Ott a new one, for sure!"

Then, as he got closer, Jayne slowed.

On the other side of the ship, coming from the front of the cargo bay, he heard gunfire.

* * *

Shepherd Book had been in the dining room preparing lunch when he heard the gunfire outside. Wash was yelling something in the cockpit, and the preacher knew something very wrong was happening, and thus bolted down the stairs into the cargo bay.

He ran toward the weapons locker, hammering in the combination, and grabbed a rifle from inside. He started loading the weapon, and heard long streams of automatic fire raging outside.

Book closed his eyes as he loaded the rifle on automatic, whispering a prayer to calm his nerves. He stilled his muscles, sought out a moment of quiet inner peace, and felt his worries chill and fall away.

There were footsteps outside, over the roar of gunfire, boots clanging up the ramp, and he knew they were hostile.

He turned back toward the entrance to the cargo bay, shouldered his rifle, and fired.

The first man into the bay carried an assault rifle, and pitched back in surprise as a round deflected off the weapon's barrel. A second shot hit in almost the same spot, deforming the weapon, which the man discovered when he tried to fire, only to have the weapon jam in his hands.

Book put a bullet into his leg as he stared at his treacherous weapon.

By then, more gunfire was streaming into the bay, and Book dove behind an equipment crate. He leaned out, firing a rapid trio of shots that impacted around the floors and walls near the next group of goons, and they took cover. Incoming fire slackened off significantly.

Book searched for another target, ignoring the wild volleys of blind fire the men were squeezing off, and spotted another target, moving up the ramp: a tall, bald man, with what looked like a streak of tattoos running up the side of his face, wearing a long coat and carrying a grenade launcher.

Book turned to fire on Ott, but before the Shepherd could bring his rifle to bear, the grenade launcher spat.

The Shepherd's ears exploded, and a sudden wave of dizziness and nausea fell over him. He found himself lying on his back, all of his muscles slackened, and his rifle lying a few inches from his fingers. He tried to reach for it, but found his fingers wouldn't move.

Concussion grenade, he thought absently, as Ott's men swarmed into the bay, surrounding him and flowing into _Serenity_. Then, as he was hauled up onto his feet, Book realized that the only thing he could do now was pray.

* * *

Simon had been checking on River when he heard the first shots, and froze for a couple of seconds. He started to leave the room, and then looked back at River's still-unconscious form, and terror started to well up within him. She was helpless, vulnerable . . . .

Stims. He needed a stim pack to wake her back up. Get her back to being able to fight, or at least get her moving. He broke into a dead run down the passenger corridor, straight for the infirmary, and as he got close, he heard a sub-sonic explosion, and then the yelling of unfamiliar voices in the cargo bay.

He was running out of time. He dove into the infirmary and threw open the drawer he had stowed the anti-sedatives and stims in, and grabbed a needle.

He spun around as two men with sub-machineguns charged into the common room and swept into the infirmary, leveling their weapons at him and yelling-

Simon Tam didn't think, he just belted the first man that was getting between him and his sister. The thug stumbled backward, shocked, and the second barely had time to react, not expecting an unarmed civilian to be fighting back, when Simon shoved him aside. He bolted out of the infirmary, and was turning to run into the passenger dorms, when a huge, meaty elbow slammed into the side of his head, smashing Simon against the wall.

He fell to the floor, rolled over, and stared with dazed eyes up into Mitch's face as he pointed his rifle at the doctor's throat.

"You've got guts, Doctor," he remarked, with a bit of grudging respect.

* * *

Wash tried calling Zoe or Jayne over the radio, but they weren't responding. The comm channels were filled with white noise - low-level jamming, which he knew he could beat given a few minutes and _Serenity's_ own comm system - but he didn't have time.

He heard gunfire below, from the cargo bay, and his heart locked up.

Mumbling a flurry of curses, the pilot spun toward the chart table at the back of the bridge, where Mal and Zoe usually kept a few guns to protect the bridge. He grabbed his favored revolver, and stuffed a pistol into his belt, and started up the crew corridor.

He saw movement up the hallway, and then figures stormed into the dining room. Wash raised his revolver and started firing, biting back his worries for Zoe and the others.

The revolver roared six times, then he dropped it, falling to one knee just how Zoe had taught him, and pulled out his pistol. As he raised it, he saw one of the men down the corridor pump his arm, and something black and cylindrical flew into the crew corridor.

"Oh, balls," Wash managed to say, before the flashbang went off.

* * *

"That assault cannon sounds familiar," Mal said, firing a couple of shots at any movement he saw.

"It does, sir," Zoe replied, cocking her rifle. "Ott?"

"Yeah, definitely Ott," Mal hissed. He hadn't seen hide nor hair of that bastard since the bank job nearly five months back. The assault cannon being used on them now sounded exactly like the one Ott's psychotic lady friend used.

Well, that put a face on their opponents, though Mal still didn't have a reason why they'd be gunning for him. Well, actually, he had a _lot_ of reasons, but he couldn't narrow them down too much with what he knew.

"We've got to find better cover," Mal growled as he fired another shot, then dropped to reload. "That cannon is killing us."

"Agreed," Zoe replied. "There's some shed about fifty meters east. Looks sturdy enough to resist low-caliber fire like hers."

"All right," Mal said. "On three. One, two -"

They broke and rose, Mal firing a flurry for shots at the power plant. The bullets from his pistol seemed meek and impotent in comparison to the massive assault cannon, but they did make the incoming fire slacken off a bit. They started to moved toward sheds, Mal figuring they had a good shot at getting to decent cover.

Something burst out of the grass dead ahead of them, throwing aside a ghillie suit as it rose.

It was a man. Small, slender, dark-haired with a long ponytail, and with tanned skin like someone from Sinon. He announced his presence by whipping out a short, collapsible bo staff that extended outwards in an eyeblink, and slammed it into Zoe's head before she could react. She toppled sideways without a word, hitting the ground. In a heartbeat, he'd taken her down.

Mal spun toward him, raising his pistol, when the staff jabbed out, hitting his wrist. His arm went numb, and the staff shot up into Mal's face. He ducked and leaned back, the weapon missing him by a hair, and shot ahead into a wild, charging kick. The man snapped his weapon back, throwing aside his kick, and slammed the staff into Mal's flank. He doubled over, grunting, and stepped back into a guard.

The staff-wielding man stalked forward, and Mal rushed in, knowing he was overmatched and also knowing that the only way he'd get out of this was to end this fast and dirty. He punched hard, and as expected his foe blocked the attack with ease. Mal dropped low beneath the counter, his hand diving down into the dirt of the field, and rose. He whipped a mass of dirt and plant matter up into the man's face, and he recoiled just as Mal sent a savage right hook into his jaw.

The man stumbled backward, and Mal moved in to pursue, when he suddenly surged back forward, staff snapping and swinging. Mal raised his hands in a surprised guard, and the weapon crashed against his forearms, sending numbing pain running up them. Then, there was a blow to his stomach, and as Mal double over reflexively, the staff smashed into his skull.

He fell to the dirt, pain poking at him from the broken glass lying all around the agri-dome. He looked up, saw his pistol only a few feet away, and started crawling toward it. If only he could . . . .

Mal had almost reached it when the bo staff reached down and flicked the weapon away, and a boot settled into the small of his back.

"Sorry, Captain Reynolds," Si Quan said. "You fought better than I expected."

Mal clenched his fists, and mumbled a curse as he felt arms reach down and grab his, pulling them behind his back. Cords wrapped around his wrists, locking them behind his back, and he was hauled to his feet.

Between his bloody fingers, Mal gripped the large shard of broken glass he'd grabbed, and carefully slipped it up his sleeve as they pushed him away.

* * *

In the passenger dorms of _Serenity_, Ott's men were sweeping and clearing the a last unsecured rooms.

In the very last bedroom, they found a small, unconscious teenage girl.

* * *

Jayne's muscles burned as he hauled himself up. He didn't hear anymore shots being fired, and that wasn't good.

That was actually _real_ bad.

He gripped the metal, hot from sitting out in the sun all day, and grunted away the burning pain in his fingers as he clambered up over the engine section. He looked across the top of _Serenity_, and then started forward, keeping in a low, stealthy crouch lest anyone on the ground spot him.

There was a sudden roar of noise overhead, and Jayne looked up, to see a large, sleek ship circle around above them, before coming to a landing on the other end of the agri-combine, in the only other spot that had enough room for a boat that size. Ott's boat.

Jayne mumbled a curse under his breath as he moved over the top of _Serenity_, toward the topside access hatch. He was gonna splatter _all_ these _hun dans_, he promised.

* * *

The stunned, dazed, and battered crew of _Serenity_ were dragged into the cargo bay from multiple directions. Simon was the most conscious of all of them, and rough hands pushed him along until he was in the bay. They shoved him down to his feet, and made sure to tie his hands behind his back. He looked around, and saw Book was already there, bruised and battered and his eyes bleary. He was tied up too.

A few moments later, the thugs were dragging Wash down the stairs, his eye blackened where a rifle butt had put him down.

"Where are the others?" Simon asked Book, who shook his head quickly, despite his disorientation. Simon nodded, understanding, but then he saw who they were hauling in through the front doors.

"Kaylee," he gasped, and started to stand, only to get shoved back down to the floor. Kaylee was tied up too, and a rough dressing had been applied to her neck. She was awake, and the fear on her voice was apparent. The guards pushed her over toward where the others were being lined up, and shoved her roughly to her knees beside Simon.

"Kaylee?" he asked again, and she looked to him, fear and terror on her face, and leaned over toward him, putting her head against his neck. The guards broke up the moment of desperate contact, pulling her back and away from him.

"Oh, God," Wash was mumbling. "Baby, no . . . ."

Simon looked up to see the guards dragging a semi-conscious Zoe into the bay. She was battered worse than the rest, and Simon found himself looking over her stomach, immediately worried about the small life that was growing in there. She didn't seem to be seriously injured, which was a small relief, but the doctor in him immediately knew he would have to check her over the moment they would get out of this..

If they would get out of this.

The doctor busied himself looking around the bay, checking the rest of the crew visually. The guards gathered around them, including a blonde woman carrying a gigantic assault weapon, along with an armature on her right arm to carry the huge chaingun. He could tell by the way she was walking and by the weight of the weapon that she had an augmented skeleton and musculature.

A minute later, Simon heard footsteps behind him, and looked over his shoulder. His heart jumped into his chest.

The guards dragged in River, still unconscious, her hands tied loosely behind her. They dumped her behind the rest of the line of prisoners.

"Ott, we've got six," the blonde woman spoke, looking toward one of the men, who had a streak of kanji tattooed across his face. The man nodded, and put a finger to his ear.

"Selke, you have Cobb yet?" A few seconds passed. "Grab two men and begin searching the ship, then. If he was last seen headed this way, he couldn't have many places to hide." Ott looked up, and around the bay.

"Did you find the Companion?" he demanded, and the men shook their heads.

"Shuttle's detached," one of them said, and Ott nodded.

"She'll be back eventually," he mused. "I suppose we'll just wait until we've rounded up the rest."

"Where is the Captain?" Simon spoke up, and Ott glanced toward him.

"What?"

"Where is our Captain?" Simon repeated, steeling himself. He had to stay calm, had to plan a way for them to get loose.

"Out there," Ott said, gesturing toward the bay. "I want to have a chat with him."

"What do you want, Ott?" Zoe mumbled, looking up. He glanced to her, and smiled.

"The same thing everyone wants," he replied. "Money. And you and your crew are worth a lot to me."

"The Alliance will see you dead," Simon said, latching onto that thread. "Trust me. Everyone who has tried to collect the bounty on us is-"

"I'm not collecting you for the Alliance," Ott sneered, and turned to walk away. "I'm collecting you for Adelei Niska."

The stunned, terrified silence that followed him as he left was all the reaction necessary.

* * *

He waited until the noise below had stopped before clambering down into the topside access hatch, and from there into the crew corridor. Jayne paused, listening, Binky in hand, and cursing the lack of ammo for Boo. All these magazines for Vera were dead weight.

A few moments passed, and he heard nothing but silence, and nodded. He started up the corridor, toward his bunk.

Voices from the bridge. He froze, listening, and slowly backed off. He heard a snake-like voice, and snarled silently. The little freaky sumbitch was back.

Jayne retreated into the dining room as he saw Selke emerge from the bridge, growling orders to locate Jayne. Somehow, they knew - or figured - he was on the boat. He needed to find a hiding spot.

Jayne cut across the dining room, spotting one of the storeroom doors, and slipped inside. He closed the door behind him, and it clicked shut.

He jerked as it did so, the noise sounding far too loud in his ears, and he waited. Jayne peeked around the room, finding he was in the utility closet, filled with chemicals and non-food-related things. An old coat was hanging up on one wall.

Nope. They didn't store any extra guns in here. He was going to have to talk to Mal about that.

He heard more voices outside, sounding a bit more agitated, and they began to converge on the storeroom door.

Dammit, they must have heard, or thought they heard. He turned, looking around the room, his mind racing.

_Okay, okay, okay. Out of ammo for Boo. You gonna take on a dozen armed guys with just a knife? That's the sort of thing legends are made of, but . . . . _

Jayne looked up at the old coat hung up on the wall, and an idea hit him. Insane, crazy, Mal-like, but an idea nonetheless. He started rummaging through the store room, looking for something in particular . . . .

He pulled out what he needed a moment later: lighter fluid, matches, and the old coat.

Jayne Cobb smiled. If this worked, it _was_ gonna be legendary.

* * *

"You're not that bad," Mal admitted as he kneeled in the dirt. He looked up to Si Quan, who shrugged. They were about a hundred or so meters from _Serenity_.

"I trained at the best dojos at Sinon," Quan replied. "So, don't feel bad. Though I did hear you managed to defeat an Operative in close combat."

"Just rumors," Mal replied, shrugging as best his bonds would allow. "Why's someone competent like you working for Ott?"

"It pays," Quan said. "Being highly skilled isn't terribly useful if you can't turn a profit off of it."

"Ya'll expectin' to make a profit off this venture?" Mal asked, and Quan nodded.

"A million square for your whole crew," he said with a shrug. "Adelei Niska pays well." Mal blinked.

"Whoa, what?" he asked, jaw dropping. He looked away from Quan, the words echoing in his head, and a sudden jackhammer of realization knifed through Mal - he had brought Niska's wrath down onto his entire crew. The same guilt that had hit him when he'd seen Jayne and River in that monster's hands tripled over. Zoe, Book, _Inara_ -

_Kaylee_.

"Yes," Quan said. "Adelei Niska is most displeased with you, it seems. You know, he was the one who hired us to boost that medicine you recaptured."

At Mal's surprised look, Quan nodded.

"Yes," he added. "Ott expanded a little since that bank job you helped him pull. So, he's kind of mad that you cost him more than half his crew and an entire ship. And here he comes."

Mal looked down to see the bald captain walking toward him, smiling as he approached, another goon behind him. Mal recognized him as Mitch by his dreadlocks.

"Mal," Ott said, laughing. "Its been a long time."

"Not long enough," Mal replied. "Hear Niska's got you doing his dirty work for him."

"Oh, for a million, I'll do any amount of dirty," Ott replied. "I could buy a couple of moons for what he's offering. Crappy moons, but moons." He held out his hand. "Quan?"

The martial artist stepped around hand handed Ott Mal's pistol. Ott grinned as he looked it over, and then put it in an empty holster.

"I _do_ love antiques," he said. "You really should have handed that one over to me at the bank job, Mal. It would have made me less inclined to do this."

His foot drove into Mal's stomach, and Mal doubled over, pain shooting up from his gut. He coughed a couple of times, and looked up.

"You sure you want to do that?" Mal asked. "Niska's gonna get awful jealous."

Ott shrugged, then kicked Mal again, this time in the face. He flopped over onto his side, grunting, blood running down his lips.

"So, Niska's offering a million for me," he mused. "That's awful ridiculous. How do you know he won't just kill you once he's got me?"

"Its not for you, Mal," Ott replied. "_No one _is worth a million square. Niska is offering me two hundred for you, and one hundred for every one of your crew I bring in."

Mal looked up at Ott, and a surge of anger went through him at the confirmation of his fears.

"You're turning my entire _crew_ over to him?" he growled, and started trying to rise, memories of seeing River in that monster's clutches mixed with mental images of the same happening to Inara or Kaylee.

Ott kicked him again, throwing Mal back to the dirt.

"Its a dirty job," Ott replied. "But all those zeroes are going to make me sleep much better at night. On my own personal destroyer. While orbiting my own moon."

He kicked Mal in the gut again, and he doubled up reflexively. Ott raised his leg again, but then paused as he heard something over his radio.

"What was that? Something the matter?"

Mal listened in, and heard, just barely, what the man on the other end said.

_"Nothing," _someone said. _"The little girl's awake, is all."_

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**Oh, _snap._

Until next chapter . . . .


	27. Chapter Five: The Child

**_Author's Note: _**Riverthink in this chapter. Also, this one is a bit shorter than is normal for me.

* * *

_**Chapter Five: The Child**_

_**Bad things **_had happened while she had been asleep.

She could_ taste_ fear, floating in the air, from several directions. Kaylee most of all, Simon too. A hair of it from the Shepherd, and a sliver from Zoe. Wash, especially.

Hostility, _contempt_, **power, **from the others. _Many books_ scattered across the bay and the ship. Most normal, violent, people with guns and a job. A couple not so. A woman, her pages splashed with blood and anger, and another, twisted, _snake-like_, smiling. Her stomach churned as she touched his thoughts.

She thought. That was what she was best at, scanning her surroundings, just like they had taught her. She hated the memories, but now she needed them. Words, _experience_, _learning_.

_SERE_. Survival. Escape. Resist. Evade.

Survival. That was assured. Their survival was a high priority for the invaders. _**Business**_ demanded it.

She bit back a moan at **_the business,_** and what it brought back to her.

Hypothesis: their survival would drop in priority as casualties mounted. She had no intention of testing that.

Escape. She took inventory of herself. No weapons on hand. Only her clothes. Hands were bound by rope. Cheap, simple rope, ties were rough and not particularly skilled. A touch of thoughts showed she was low priority, just a little girl.

She wished sometimes that she was.

First rule of escape: all bonds loosen with time. Time they didn't have, but the bonds were loose already. Afterthought, almost. They weren't afraid of her, had all eyes on Zoe and Book. Zoe had killed at least one of them.

_Jayne._ He wasn't nearby. She could feel him, above, a dark smile in his thoughts. That smile reassured her; he was about to hurt someone.

Quiet. _Careful_. Her wrists moved very slowly, the _roughness_ biting her skin. She shifted and twisted, keeping her movements subtle, sneaky, silent. She counted seventy-three seconds before she felt give, and kept working. Estimated twenty-five more seconds before pressure and muscle movements would be enough to . . . .

One of the men was stepping closer. He peered down at the girl, and fear began welling up inside her as she saw his _**thoughts**._

"You think he'd care if we broke some of 'em in?" asked one of the men, chuckling.

"Get away from her!" Simon yelled, trying to stand. River bit her lip as she felt the **impact **in his back, and he dropped to his knees, moaning.

"Lay off, Martin," snarled the woman. "Niska is a jealous man. You want to risk making him angry?"

"Like he'd know if we got some play in," growled the man standing over her.

"The girl's probably a virgin," the woman replied. "He'll know."

"Like there's any girls this age who are still virgins anyhow," snapped Martin, but he moved away.

That had been close. He'd nearly seen her hands, loose and almost free. The thoughts in his head brought her back to _**that room**_, with _Jayne_ and the dark thoughts-

No. Couldn't dwell on it, but the thoughts came unbidden, uncontrolled.

Out of time. Couldn't control the thoughts, the _wetness_, the _pain_. Her body betrayed her, trembling touches of fear from that moment.

Another man walked by, and he paused, noticing her shivers. A mumble.

She let herself _see with her eyes._

"Hm," he muttered, looking down at her. The radio chirped.

_"What was that? Something the matter?"_ it asked.

"Nothing," the man replied, turning away. "The little girl's awake is all."

Her wrists were loose. The _biting_ ropes stopped _nipping_.

Time for step three.

_Resist._

* * *

"Okay, Mal," Ott said, gesturing with his weapon, and his goons hauled the Captain up off his feet. Blood still dribbled down his lips. "Time to move everyone aboard my ship. You'll find the accommodations quite to your standards-"

The radio hissed and popped, and what sounded like voices came over the other end. Ott snatched it back up.

"Alphonse!" he hissed. "Is something wrong?"

The radio squealed, and then they heard someone's voice. It was hard to tell who, but the words were fairly clear.

After all, they were being screamed quite loudly.

_"My _arms_! Both-"_

More screaming. Gunfire. A crackling sound that seemed suspiciously like broken bones. Ott frowned, not sure what was going on.

"Alphonse! Martin! Guelo! Someone tell me what's-"

_"MY BLOOD!" _someone was crying. _"She punched out ALL my blood!"_

"Someone respond!" Ott yelled, and then he heard a chuckle. He glanced over to Mal, who was smiling, his expression dark.

_"My spine!" _someone else shouted._"I can't feel my legs! Help me! Oh, God . . . someone please . . . someone maternal!" _

"That would be my good luck charm," Mal said with a tight, knowing grin. Behind his back, out of Ott's line of sight, the glass shard snapped his bonds.

* * *

Selke moved across the dining room, knives in hand. He saw the trail of blood leading toward the storage closet, and licked his lips with pleasure. He ran one of his curved blades across his tongue, and fervently hoped the big one would force him to resort to lethal force.

He glanced to the two men with him, and gestured for them to move forward. They readied stun batons, the weapons sparking in their grips as they approached the door. Selke flipped one of his knives over, holding it by its tip. Ott would understand. Fifty thousand was still a pretty piece of change.

Then there was shouting, and gunfire down below. He stopped, looking down the crew corridor, wondering what was happening, and then one of the men with him let out a cry of shocked confusion. There was a flicker of firelight in the corner of Selke's eye, and he spun around-

-in time to see a hulking form wreathed in brilliant, blazing fire leap out of the storeroom and run one of his two men through with a huge combat knife.

He was on fire. Jayne Cobb was _on fire_.

Jayne whipped around, backhanding the second man so hard he went flipping across the dining room and crashed into the wall, neck broken, and then whirled on Selke. He let out an inarticulate war cry and charged, his coat ablaze and Binky clenched in hand.

The look of sheer, pants-browning _terror_ on the little freak's face made Jayne oh so _very_ happy.

* * *

"Quan!" yelled Ott, pointing to his resident martial arts master. The little man nodded and started running toward _Serenity,_ bo staff in hand. As he disappeared, Ott pointed at the other two men flanking Mal.

"Mitch, Davis, get him on the ship," he snarled, and the turned to follow Si Quan. He got a few steps before he heard a sudden, gargling cry, and then a savage impact of fist on face. Ott whirled around to see one man dead, throat slit, and Malcolm Reynolds stabbing the glass shard into Mitch's chest. Mal turned toward Ott as Mitch fell aside, murder in the captain's eyes, and charged.

Ott drew his pistol in a heartbeat as Mal closed in like an enraged, browncoated freight train, and fired a round, hitting Mal in the thigh as he rumbled forward.

If Captain Malcolm Reynolds even felt the impact, he didn't show it. Ott, on the other hand, felt Mal's fist most acutely as it shattered his nose and spread a mess of blood all over his delicate kanji tattoos.

* * *

There was blood. _Lots_ of blood. And some screaming, but that was dying out. One man dropped to his knees, both arms held at angles that churned the gut to just look at them. His neck shattered a moment later from a sideways kick to the throat. Another writhed on the floor, flopping like a dead fish, his legs at awkward angles, bleeding to death from massive wounds in his back. A third lay in a wide pool of his own blood, ribs poking out of his chest.

Five more men were facing the very small, frazzle-haired girl with stun batons in hand, and two more were raising firearms as she stalked forward, a terrifyingly blank yet horribly focused look in her little brown eyes.

"Take the bitch down!" Marietta screamed, turning to cover the other prisoners with her arm cannon. The men hesitated, and then she spun, pointing her weapon at them. She opened her mouth to shout another order, but it was drowned out by a roar overhead. Everyone looked up in time to see the lithe, thin form of Selke running in blind panic out onto the catwalk, and chasing him was an enormous, howling, knife-wielding figure _swathed in fir_e.

Selke whirled, slashing with one of his knives, and it scraped against Jayne Cobb's own blade. He barreled straight in, ignoring a second cut that grazed his arm, and one of his arms, fully ablaze, lashed out in a wild, vicious hook that clocked him clean across the jaw.

With that rather potent distraction, Ott's thugs didn't realize they were facing River Tam in close combat until she crushed one man's throat with a flat, straight punch to the neck. As he fell, gasping for breath that would never come again, the others whirled, swinging their weapons wildly in near-panic.

Her reaction was a tiny thing, a very little gesture that seemed trivial compared to the violence of their assault. A small wave of the girl's hand, and a graceful pivot, and one man's stun baton was flying up into another's throat so hard it punched through cartilage and stabbed out the back of his neck. He froze, twitching and spasming as electrical shocks ran through his body as he suffocated.

The next man felt an impact on his leg as he swung, and toppled over as the girl kicked out his feet with almost contemptuous ease, and then she spun back toward the two standing goons. Her arms crossed as they struck, and she caught one man's wrist. She ducked and slid forward, a delicate spin around beside him, and his arm was twisted away at a horribly painful angle. He let out a cry that doubled over as her other hand pressed against his elbow, and then the arm bent backward over itself at a sharp angle. The baton fell from his hand, and then she hopped back. A high, scything kick hit him at the base of his neck, and he flopped to the deck like a discarded puppet.

The two gun-wielding thugs held back, uncertain as to what to do, until one man found his leg erupting in raw agony as another sickening crunch filled the room, a boot shattering his shin. Shepherd Derrial Book, having slipped his bound hands under his legs in the confusion, then tackled the thug. They went sprawling across the bay, where the preacher closed both fists over his foe's throat and started choking him.

The second gun-wielder was turning toward Book when Wash leapt at him, a wild, rolling tackle that hit his legs and sent him tumbling to the floor. He kicked out at Wash and started trying to roll over, when a knee hit him across one of his jugular veins. He looked up, trying to struggle and raise his gun as Simon Tam' knee crushed his throat with surgical precision. The shocked, dying man's weapon hand almost had the gun leveled at his attacker when Kaylee threw herself atop his arm, pinning it to the floor for the seconds he needed to realize he was dead.

The last standing man facing River pulled his weapon free of his dying friend and swung it. She ducked and spun away, a flitting leaf in a hurricane, and then sent an open palm jab into his solar plexus. He staggered, stumbling back, and then two rapid-fire punches to the chest shattered his rib bones. One of them stabbed back into his heart, and he froze, confused and uncertain, before sliding to the deck.

The final man, prone on the floor, started to rise, but then River's leg shot up at an improbable angle to her torso and then slammed down on the back of his neck, shattering vertebrae.

Book was being pushed backward, his opponent strong and terrified and desperate, and as they rose, he thrashed about. Book found himself rolled onto his back, his opponent getting on top and struggling to bring his pistol to bear. Then, something big loomed up behind him, and the goon's skull was smashed inward by a mighty overhead chop of a terribly solid blunt weapon.

"Nobody move!" Marietta screamed, cycling up her chaingun and sweeping it toward the group of suddenly non-compliant prisoners. The others looked up, frozen in place, save for River. Her leg twitched at the holster of one of her victims, and her bare toes flipped a revolver up into her hands. She almost had the weapon up when the psychotic cannon-wielding woman spoke again.

"No," Marietta snarled, leveling her weapon at the tangle of Simon, Kaylee, Wash, and their opponent. She locked eyes with the terrifyingly efficient teenage girl. "Drop it, you little freak, or I'll-"

Something large and hard hit the chaingun, smashing through the barrel cycle mechanism and ammo feeder. The weapon flew down and slammed into the floor, and Marietta looked down at the suddenly useless hunk of firepower hanging from her wrist. She stared in shock for a heartbeat, before raising her eyes.

Zoe Allyne Washburne, hands still bound, raised Mal's lucky blood-stained sledgehammer, fixed Marietta with a solid, implacable stare, and smashed her head in.

* * *

Selke was not a man who could be generously considered sane, but he'd never faced something quite like this. Worst of all, he _knew_ this man; he'd fought Jayne Cobb before, but never in close battle with knives, nor after having threatened one of the few people he gave a rat's ass about, and particularly not when he'd been _on fire_.

Jayne, on the other hand, had little time to reflect on the oddness of his situation, Binky cutting and darting back and forth almost on automatic. He didn't even feel the heat, for at that moment, he could only remember the little bastard's knife, with Kaylee's blood on it.

Maybe it was the light from the flames, but Jayne Cobb was still seeing _red_.

Selke launched a quick slashing routine, and then his arm pumped forward, in a swift stab that would have plunged through a slower man's heart.

Instead, the thin knife-wielding man found his arm exploding in agony as Jayne sidestepped, grabbed his wrist, and thrust Binky into his elbow hard enough to crack bone.

Jayne dropped Binky, and one hand grabbed Selke's thigh, and the other grabbed his neck. Even as he was still reeling from the pain of having his arm so easily broken, Ott's resident psychopath found himself being raised into the air.

Then, Jayne Cobb brought him down hard, right over his knee.

* * *

Ott recoiled, spinning around, his head swimming, and then felt a solid kick to his lower back. He dropped to his knees, and then felt a hand on his shoulder. The holster at his waist lightened a hair, and he heard a click behind his head.

"You want my gun so bad," Mal hissed behind him, the weapon leveled at the back of Ott's head, "You can have all your fill of it."

"Be reasonable, Mal," Ott said, raising his hands and looking back toward the enraged Captain. "This was nothing personal, you know."

"Well, this here _is_," Mal replied, his finger twitching as he squeezed the trigger.

Ott twisted, ducking as a shadow rose up behind Mal, and the bullet grazed his cheek. Mal spun as Mitch tackled him, blood flowing from his chest wound. His pistol went flopping away in the dirt as the thug tried to pin him down.

As they struggled, Ott rose, blood flowing from his face in multiple spots, and looked around for his own weapon. He couldn't find it, lost somewhere in the scrub, and he quickly realized he didn't have time. Leaving his wounded man to deal with Mal, Ott dashed for his ship, a hundred and fifty meters away.

He knew what happened when Malcolm Reynolds' blood was up, and that knowledge _terrified_ him.

Mal shoved his attacker back, and then reached up, grabbing the shoulders of his coat. Mitch raised a fist to punch Mal, and he let him, a solid blow to the cheek that he knew would smart in the morning. In exchange, Mal brought his head back and snapped it forward, a thunderbolt of extra-thick skull that pulverized his attacker's nose. The man flew backward, and Mal reached down to his chest, tearing the glass shard free.

As Mitch came back forward, Mal stabbed the glass shard into his eye.

* * *

There was a yell overhead, and the group of battered prisoners in the cargo bay looked up, in time to see the thin, tattooed man topple off the catwalk, hitting the metal floor with a painful crunch. His back was broken in two places, and his skin was burnt in patches, but he was in no condition to feel any of that, or to breathe, for that matter.

Up above, Jayne Cobb stripped off his coat, still burning, and slung it away. His arms and face were red in patches, and his shirt was ruined with scorch marks.

"Jayne?" Zoe murmured, still holding the bloody hammer.

"Yeah?" he asked, smoke rising from his body and face bright from the heat burns.

"Were you on fire?" she asked, and he nodded.

"Yep," he replied, as if it was the most natural thing in the 'verse.

"On purpose?"

"Ayep."

"Wait a second," Wash said, standing up. Zoe cut across the room to undo his restraints. "You set yourself on fire? Intentionally?"

"That's what I said, wasn't it?" he asked.

"Jayne," Kaylee said, her eyes wide. "_Why_ did you set yourself _on fire_?"

"Because," Jayne said, tapping his forehead with a smoldering glove. "They can't grab me if I'm on fire."

"How _long_ have you been on fire?" Wash demanded, but his words were drowned out by a more alarmed call from Simon.

"Uh, guys," he yelled, standing up. They turned and looked across the bay.

Si Quan walked into the room, his steps smooth and cool and confident, ponytail flipped back over his shoulder. He twirled his bo staff idly in his hands as he looked around the carnage in the bay.

River slipped forward to meet him.

Those eyes flicked toward the small, frazzle-haired girl as she moved forward, around the others, and placed herself between him and her family. He met her gaze, and a slow smile spread over his lips as he saw her stance, the way she moved, and understood the graceful body language and bloody fingers. She was a fighter. A worthy foe.

He started forward, circling slowly, bo staff twirling. Zoe moved back, working to get out of the restraints, knowing what the little man could do with that staff. She hadn't seen River in combat firsthand, so she had no idea if the girl could take someone that quick.

Up above, Jayne cursed and started toward the stairs, ready to jump in and put his massive weight and very sharp knife to work. The others stared, understanding they would do little more than get in the way in this state, excepting possibly Book. The Shepherd was struggling to get out of his own bonds, knowing he had to help as quickly as he could.

River locked her eyes onto Quan's, body utterly still, save for the slow heaving of her torso. Sweat ran down her brow, stinging the wide brown eyes that remained fixed upon her opponent. She slowly turned as he circled around the bay, his staff idly moving and twirling.

He came to a halt, and there was a long moment of bated breath, everyone watching and knowing that the clash was about to take place.

Si Quan bolted forward like greased lighting, spinning his staff before him, and let out a mighty kai yell as he closed in, preparing to leap into battle against a worthy foe, someone who could test him, someone whose skills could match his own-

River Tam shot Si Quan twice in the throat.

She stepped around his body as it toppled past her and bumped into the pile of corpses she'd left in her wake, and then she dropped the stolen revolver, breathing heavily.

Silence filled the bay.

"So," Jayne said, halfway down the stairs, looking over the carnage. "Yeah."

* * *

Malcolm Reynolds rose, shaking himself off, and looked up.

Ott was a speck in the distance, running toward his ship as fast as his legs could carry him. Terror lent a man amazing speed.

Mal turned, limped over toward his pistol, and picked it up. He glanced toward Ott, looked at his weapon, and slid it into his holster, mumbling a curse at the bastard. He turned and started to walk toward _Serenity_, and then paused. He glanced over his shoulder at the retreating form. They had won. It was over.

A couple of heartbeats passed, and he reminded himself that Ott was going to sell his whole crew to Adelei Niska with a smile and a wave.

Mal spun and took three steps back toward Ott. On the first step, his hand grabbed his pistol. On the second step, it snapped the pistol out of its holster.

On the third step, Ott jerked, and then fell face forward to the dirt.

Mal looked down the sights of his pistol, and nodded as the report of the gunshot echoed off the hills and buildings around him. He slid the weapon back into his holster, then turned around and limped back home.

A few minutes later, he came to the flat spot where _Serenity_ had touched down, and started up the ramp. He came to a halt very quickly as he saw the carnage inside.

A steady lake of spreading blood widened across the bay, dripping into the floor grating. Zoe and Book were helping untie the rest of the crew, while Jayne stood up above, smoke drifting off his clothes. In the middle of it all, River stood up to her knees in corpses, body heaving with long, heavy breaths. Blood dripped off her fingers.

"Captain," River breathed, staring directly at Mal.

"Yeah?" he asked, stepping into the bay and looking around at the destruction. She took a breath, and then spoke again.

"Chocolate_. Now_."

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**And that wraps up that. All that's left for this little interlude is the epilogue.

As an aside, when I was writing the scenes with Jayne, I had the Benny Hill chase theme playing in the back of my head.

Until next chapter . . . .


	28. Mosaic: Epilogue: The Family

**_Author's Note: _**I don't do this very often nowadays, but for the final scene in this chapter, I _highly_ reccommend "River Understands Simon" off the Firefly OST. Its the music I pretty much wrote the entire scene to, and I think it fits well.

_**

* * *

**_

Mosaic Epilogue: The Family

Ott's crew hadn't been expecting their comrades to be so readily overpowered. When _Serenity's_ crew stormed his ship, they found only a couple of men who fought to the death. There, they found intelligence on the whole of Mal's crew, courtesy of Adelei Niska - including some important, if incomplete, data on Simon and River.

"Sir," Zoë said as they stood on the bridge of Ott's ship, looking over the information. "This is . . . ."

"I know," Mal rumbled, dropping into the chair and putting his hands in his head. "I know."

It was maybe a blessing in his eyes, that Ott's crew were all dead. Knowing what they knew, he wouldn't have been able to let them live otherwise.

A couple of hours passed, the rest of the crew surveying the Ott's ship while Jayne and Zoë swept the valley for any stragglers. Mal was still on the bridge, reading over the ship's logs, which didn't do much else but confirm his suspicions about Niska. The only good news, he found, was that they hadn't been keen on sharing their information, and there didn't seem to be a posted public bounty. As much as Niska wanted them, it was still a personal concern.

He heard a bit of movement on the deck behind him, and Mal looked back over his shoulder.

River stared back at him, standing in the doorway to the bridge. Her hands were bruised and still flecked with dried blood where she'd beaten half of Ott's crew to death. Mal didn't say anything, but he saw the look in her eyes, an understanding sadness. The fact that she knew what he was feeling put him off a little, but he had to live with it.

Mal rose and stepped past her, giving her a nod. It was the only apology he could really muster.

"Not your fault," she said, and he paused, looking back.

"Thanks, but . . . ." Mal shook his head.

"Its not your fault," she repeated.

It was, though. Mal knew she meant well, but it was.

* * *

Wash and Zoë were up on the bridge the next morning, taking watch, with her in his lap, and his hands rubbing her still-flat stomach.

"So, what do you think?" he asked. "Obidiah?"

"No," she hissed, giving him a horrified look.

"Nah, I didn't think so," Wash said, grinning. "Maybe a poetical sort of name. Aberdeen, if its a girl?" Zoë shook her head.

"That's not a good name," she replied, her smile fading a bit. Wash winced, remembering Tracy and where he'd come from.

"Yeah, sorry," he said. "All this violence and excitement's been addling my brain." He patted her stomach again. "But he's alright, isn't he?"

"He or she," Zoë said. "Yes. Doc's sayin' its gonna be all right. Gonna have to be careful in a few months, though."

"Yeah, going to have to lay off the shooting, lammie-toes," he remarked, and she turned back to meet his eyes.

"You honestly expect me to let Mal and Jayne run off without adult supervision?" she asked, and he shrugged.

"Just saying that we're going to be in a delicate situation soon," he replied. "And this business with Niska . . . ."

"All part of the package, dear," she replied, settling back against Wash. "You knew what you were getting into when you signed on for this job." Her head leaned back against his neck, and he sighed.

"Well, as much risk as this job entails," he replied, pausing to kiss her at the base of her jaw, "the perks are worth it. And I love my co-workers. No need to worry about a sexual harassment suit either."

"Except from Kaylee."

"Except from Kaylee," he agreed.

* * *

Her room was empty. He heard the hissing of water from the washroom, and Simon followed it, the quiet splashing of water in a sink leading him inside.

River stood over the sink, hands working in the water with a towel and soap, furiously scrubbing her fingers and knuckles. He could see a faint tremble in her shoulders, and through the mirror over the sink he could see her face, scrunched up with tight emotion.

"River?" he asked, and when she didn't respond, he raised his voice, repeating her name. She looked up, seeing him in the mirror, and she slowed. He stepped into the washroom, and he realized that this was the first time he'd seen her in here before on her own; she'd usually bathed in her room with soap and a sponge, and her reluctance to shower was part of the reason her hair was always so frazzled.

She'd always hated the bathroom back on Osiris, and that doubled over on _Serenity_. He guessed the stainless steel and relative cleanliness of the room brought back bad memories.

"What's wrong?" he asked, knowing something had to be bothering her if she was in here on her own. Her eyes flicked away, and she pulled her hands out of the sink, water dripping off trembling fingers.

"Hamlet," she mumbled.

"Hm?" Simon asked, and she turned to face him, clutching her hands.

"It was . . . ." she paused. "Hamlet. I don't remember the scene. The play."

"That was years ago," Simon said, and smiled at the memory. "You kept reciting parts of it to annoy me, because I had it for my classic literature exam." She nodded, and a single, sad laugh came from her.

"Now I can't remember it right," she said. "Act . . . Three? I don't . . . . the king. Claudius. He tries to wash it away. 'Out, damned spot!' But it won't . . . ."

"I think that was MacBeth," Simon mused, and River frowned. It wasn't like her to make mistakes, but even he wasn't sure. It was so far away now.

Simon looked down at her hands, the skin red and raw where she'd been rubbing it.

"Out, damned spot," she repeated quietly. Simon was silent, hearing a faint echo of pain in her voice, and shook his head. It didn't matter where the quote came from.

"River, you saved us," he said, staking a step closer and resting a hand on her shoulder. She didn't meet his eyes for a moment, but then looked up. "You saved us all again. And there's nothing wrong with that."

She closed her eyes, and nodded, biting her lip. The doctor knew that gesture, one that meant she didn't exactly believe it herself.

He thought back to a few months ago, when she had broken down on the bridge with Wash. Guilt, fears, and post-traumatic stress had all welled up, and he remembered her words to Book, and how she was fighting what they had tried to make her into. Like Mal would fight against anyone trying to make him into something else. That told him all he needed to know.

"Took a life, too," she suddenly whispered, and Simon sighed, nodding.

"I haven't been following my oath very well lately, have I?" he asked, letting out an impotent laugh. She smiled anyway, a tired little crook of her mouth.

River stared at her brother for a few moments, and then suddenly came forward, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him tight. He instinctively pulled her close as well, patting her back.

"Afraid," she whispered into his ear.

"Don't be," he replied. "We're safe now. Thanks to you."

She was quiet for a moment, and he glanced to the sink behind her, and the cloth she had been furiously rubbing on her knuckles. Yes, they were safe . . . but at what cost to his sister?

* * *

"Kaylee," Mal called, walking up the passage toward the engine room. He stepped out of the darkened corridor and into the brown warmth of mostly-cleaned rust and amber light, to see a white flare of illumination burst along one side of the engine. A few seconds later, he repeated the call, and Kaylee's head poked up over the engine top.

She pulled back the goggles she was wearing for a moment, and nodded to Mal.

"Cap'n," she said, and pulled them back down.

"The engine almost up to snuff?" he asked, and he heard her shout something over the roar of the torch.

"What was that?" he asked, stepping around.

" . . . done with this part," she said, her tone indicating she was repeating something. She leaned back, turned off the torch, and closed a panel. She started to put the torch away, and Mal considered what to say. He'd have to address her at some point; he knew what she'd gone through, what memories it was bringing back up.

"Kaylee, I . . . ."

She looked back up at Mal for a moment, her eyes shielded behind her goggles, and then quickly turned away. Even protected by those lenses, he could see the pain the memories brought back.

"Are you okay?" he finally asked, and she paused. She turned, and looked across the room, to a particular spot in the engine room, and Mal knew who had once stood there.

"Yeah, Cap," she replied, her voice wavering. "I'll be fine."

"You sure?' Mal asked, taking a step toward her, and she rose, nodding, still not meeting his eyes.

"Yes, captain," she replied, her voice solid and the words formed clearly, without her usual jaunty intonation. That was all he needed to hear from her to know what she was _really_ feeling.

He stepped in close, and pulled her into a hug. She hesitated, and then her arms moved back up, pulling Mal tight as well.

"He came out of _nowher_e," he heard her whisper, and there was a waver in her voice. "Just . . . like he . . . ."

"S'okay, little Kaylee," Mal whispered into the top of her head. "S'okay."

He held her for a while, letting his mechanic take comfort in his presence, and then heard a voice up the passage.

"Kaylee?" Mal looked back, to see Simon approaching. She looked up at Mal, smiling faintly, and pulled away. He let her go, and watched as she threw an arm around Simon and kissed him on the cheek, and he pulled her close. Mal heard them whispering something to each other under the rumble of the engine.

Mal silently stepped past them, and walked down the corridor. He'd done what he could for her, and understood what she needed, something only Simon could really provide.

But, Mal promised himself, if the Doctor ever did break Kaylee's heart, he'd break Simon over his knee.

* * *

He found Shepherd Book in the common room.

"Captain," Book remarked as he walked down the stairs. "I hear we're about to get underway."

"In a rush to get somewhere?" Mal asked, and the preacher chuckled.

"I just want to leave this world behind. Get back on our journey."

"And where do you think we're headed?" Mal asked.

"Wherever we're needed," Book replied. "Wherever the turning of the worlds takes us."

Mal nodded, and started to move past Book, but then slowed. He looked back, coming to a halt, and finally spoke up again.

"Shepherd, you wanted me to be truthsome," Mal said, and Book nodded.

"I've done some unpleasant things in my time," Mal said. "I wager you have, too." Book didn't deny it. "That's why I think you understand this more than anyone."

"You are feeling guilt," Book said, blunt and direct. "Which I find interesting, since for the last year I've been traveling with you, it hasn't been that apparent."

"Yeah, and that's what's bothin' me," Mal said. "I'm not sure where it happened, but its . . . ." He paused. "I shouldn't be . . . we all signed up for this knowin' the trouble, but lately, its been feelin' like I've been bringing too much pain down on us."

"To be a leader is to bear a burden," Book said. "You can't always make the right decision."

"Not all decisions are right," Mal said, shaking his head. He reached up, running a hand through his hair, and felt a deep weight settling over his shoulders.

"I brought this down on us," he whispered. "Niska's out for all our blood because of my choices, and that's made more than a few of us hurt when they ain't deserving of it. And we nearly lost everything when Ott jumped us; I ain't gonna deny how close we shaved that hair."

"The righteous path isn't a smooth one," Book explained, shrugging. "You know that. Otherwise you wouldn't be following it."

"Me, righteous?" Mal chuckled at the notion. "Shepherd, you're gettin' as deluded as Jayne if you think that."

"I'm only commenting on what I see," Book replied. Mal frowned, considering that for a moment.

"It shouldn't be this way," he muttered. "Seems like everything that happens brings us more trouble, even when I'm just trying to do the right thing. Karma hates me."

"But you're _trying_," Book offered, and he reached down, putting a hand on Mal's shoulders. "That's a good deal better than what some would do," he added. "As long as you believe . . . ."

"You know I don't put stock in the Lord no more, preacher," Mal remarked, and Book smiled.

"And you know I'm not always talking about God," he replied. "We've already spoken on this, but you need _something_ to believe in. The greatest accomplishment of your life was made when you fought for something you _believed_."

"Somethin' worth dying for," Mal mused, his voice distant.

"I understand the brutal necessity of the life we lead out here," Book said. "More so than I would have cared to admit. Despite my best efforts, I'm regressing, and I'm reminding myself why things were the way they _were_, and why they _are_ the way they are."

"Then why aren't you leaving us heathen folk to our ways?" Mal asked, and Book smiled.

"A Shepherd can't abandon his flock, Mal. That's something I learned the hard way."

* * *

The next day was spent stripping Ott's ship of anything valuable. Kaylee and Wash tore its guts clean of everything they could carry while Jayne gleefully emptied their armory. The others helped as best they could, though Mal spent most of that time alone on _Serenity_. No one begrudged him; no one missed his dark mood after he had put Ott down, and no one could avoid the aura of guilt he was exuding. They didn't need to be a reader to know what he was feeling.

"Cap'n," Jayne said that night as he settled into a chair opposite Mal. The Captain sat in the dining room, nursing a whiskey, and handed the bottle to Jayne. He poured two fingers into his own chipped shot glass.

"I brought it down on us," Mal said, direct and simple. Jayne grunted.

"Nah," he replied. "Shepherd says, can't do somethin' smart, do somethin' right. This mess with Niska ain't-"

"I did the right thing," Mal said, bluntly. "But its done nothing but make my life hell. And everyone else's, too."

Jayne was silent on the matter for a few minutes, nursing his drink, and Mal noticed the small, thin scars on his arms. Some were battle scars, but others had been taken in the belly of Niska's boat.

"Mal, if I was feelin' like you did somethin' not right," Jayne said, "and _that_ was what landed us in this heap, I'd be a sight more angry with you. Way it stands, I'm not. Just a consequence of working with you, is all."

"I didn't know you could pronounce that word," Mal remarked, and he grinned.

"We all got our secret talents, Cap'n," he replied. "Tell the truth, I like it, sometimes," Jayne added. "Adrenaline, the life we have here. Wouldn't take it any other way."

"But we still have our troubles," Mal added, and Jayne shrugged, sipping.

Several empty minutes of contemplation followed. They both knocked back the whiskey, and refilled in silence.

"He ain't gonna stop," Jayne said after a bit, and Mal looked up from his drink. Though he'd knocked back six fingers of potent alcohol, Mal never thought he'd seen Jayne so sober in his life.

"Niska's gonna keep tryin' for us," Jayne continued. "I know you said we were gonna pay him back. And after what he's done to us, I agree. We gotta hurt him back, 'fore our luck runs out."

"The thought has crossed my mind," Mal said, voice dark.

Several seconds passed, and Jayne held up the bottle. Mal accepted the drink.

"What are we gonna do with the rest of Ott's ship?" Jayne asked.

"I got some plans for it," Mal replied quietly.

* * *

Over the blue and green streaks of Athens, _Serenity_ finally met back up with her missing shuttle and the last unofficial crewmember. Inara was surprised to find Mal wasn't waiting for her when she embarked. Instead, she met the Shepherd, who offered her a few words of greeting and escorted her to dinner.

They sat around the table, Wash cracking a few jokes, and Jayne making the occasional lewd remarks. He asked Inara to detail some of her time on the mining stations and orbital mansions, to which she bluntly refused. Book and Zoë recounted the story of how they'd fought off Ott's crew, including the rather eye-raising account of Jayne setting himself on fire to surprise his foes.

"Jayne, how long were you on fire?" she asked, and he shrugged.

"Long enough," he replied.

Everyone was talkative, save for River, which was nothing new, and Mal, which _was_. In fact, he hadn't said so much as a word at the dinner table, even to her. Kaylee and Simon were a bit quieter than usual as well, sitting close together. Neither of them spoke during the discussion of the battle, and Inara noticed about halfway through that the young doctor wrapped an arm around Kaylee's shoulders, and she leaned into him. Inara recognized the difference between an affectionate hug and a comforting one, and this was _definitely_ the latter.

From time to time, Simon would also cast worried glances to his sister, who was sitting between Jayne and Mal. River didn't seem to have much of an appetite, and kept looking down at her hands, which were covered with small bruises and scrapes. Inara also noticed a large bruise on the girl's jaw, and the only person at the table she was making eye contact with was Mal.

The Companion got the feeling that though Wash and Jayne were spinning the lighter side of the fight, it had nonetheless left deeper marks than anyone cared to admit.

Dinner passed, and they cleaned up, but Mal lingered in the dining room after the others went off to bed. Inara was about to return to her shuttle, but stopped as she reached the crew corridor. She looked back to the silent captain.

"Mal?" she called. None of the others had wanted to speak directly to him, for some reason.

"Yeah?" he asked, looking back toward her. It was the first word he'd spoken since she'd stepped aboard.

"What happened back there?"

Of course she knew, but she needed to _know_. His view on what had happened was the most important, and she could tell that he needed to talk about it.

"Somethin' I'm to answer for," Mal replied, slowly rising. He faced her, and she saw the dark, drawn look in his eyes. He started past her, and she reached out, touching his shoulder, which made him pause.

"You can talk to me about it," she asked - no, _pleaded_. Something within him was wrong, a weight hanging around his neck that she needed to understand.

"I made a call," he whispered. "A call I didn't have a choice to make, and this is what it led to. We got close to the brink again 'cause of it."

She looked into his eyes, and saw another mask - this one of pain and anger, but directed at himself, yet mixed with helplessness. It was the same look he'd sported after killing that mercenary, and the same expression he'd borne after Nandi had died. The weight of guilt.

But even with that mask, there was still that stubborn wall of obstinance that he always showed when he shut everyone out. It surprised her; for all the indications he was giving that he needed to talk about it, he was still withdrawing from her.

"Livin' on the raggedy edge," he breathed, and suddenly he looked every single one of his fifty-two years, slack and exhausted. "Sooner or later, we'll slip over."

"Mal," Inara called after him as he walked up the hallway toward his bunk.

"I'm fine, Inara," he said.

He wasn't. He was locking it up and pushing it away from everyone. His crew, Inara, himself. And as he walked up the corridor, she wanted to stop him, to make him open up, to tell her, and the helpless frustration beat at her as he disappeared into the shadows of the darkened passage.

"I'm _fine_," his silhouette called back, barely audible over the air recyclers.

And Mal was gone.

Inara stared at the spot he'd been standing in, and finally exhaled in quiet exhaustion before returning to the warmth of her shuttle.

* * *

The nightmares came back in force that night, and less than an hour after lights-out, Mal found himself lying in bed, staring at his ceiling and roiling in emotions. Images and voices danced over in his head, and Mal didn't fight them.

He hadn't had a choice. He'd never had a choice, not since the train job that dropped this whole mess onto him and his crew. It had been his call, something that seemed so right at the time, but no good deed went unpunished. Wash, River, and Jayne had paid for his choices first hand, and three days ago they'd nearly all paid with their lives.

He could have done the job. Could have saved his crew the pain. Could have kept things simple.

But if he'd done that, he would be betraying everything he was.

_So, Captain Reynolds, what matters more to you? What you are, or your crew?_

He couldn't answer that question.

Mal emerged from his bunk after several sleepless hours, and wandered into the kitchen to get something to drink. He spent a few moments rummaging through the cabinets for something stiff when he noticed the light in the little side room by the kitchen was on, the yellow glow soft and warm.

"Hey, Albatross," Mal said as he stepped around, seeing River curled up in one of the couches. She seemed to be staring off into space, but her eyes focused quickly on him, and she offered Mal a tired smile. "Scary monsters again?"

She nodded, and he winced. He'd meant it as a joke, but . . . .

"Need a drink?" he asked. "Something strong?"

"No alcohol," she mumbled. "Makes me do things the Captain doesn't like."

He nodded, pouring her some milk - _real_ milk, not that powered junk they'd been drinking before. It was a tearful sight to see genuine food products being lost, but he felt it was appropriate. After a second's consideration, he reached into one of the cabinets, and took out something special he'd picked up on their last supply stopover, and poured it into the milk. He stepped around, handing her the glass, and she took a sip.

"Chocolate," she mumbled, smiling tiredly, and settled back. Her eyes were bleary and red.

"You asked for it," Mal asked.

She looked up at him, and he could tell she was peering into the dark thoughts that had been flowing through his mind.

He saw the dark mark on her jaw, still not fully healed.

"Sorry about hittin' you before," Mal offered. She shook her head.

"A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do," River said, her voice distant, and he nodded, remembering the same words he'd spoken not a week earlier.

"I . . . didn't know what else to do," he replied. She looked back, and the way she saw right through him, picking out the guilt and darkness in his mind, disturbed Mal to his core. But at the same time, River didn't seem to be judging him.

She understood.

That _scared_ him, worse than anything he'd ever known. She could see right past the mask, and _understood_ Malcolm Reynolds.

"Sorry," she said suddenly, eyes drifting away from him.

"What for?"

"Being dangerous," she whispered. "You shouldn't trust me."

"What?" Mal asked.

"Dangerous," she repeated. "Can't be trusted. _Shouldn't_ be trusted."

Mal was silent on that score for a moment, before speaking again.

"No one tells me what I do on my boat, Albatross," he said. She looked up at him, and an emotion he couldn't read flickered across her face. He thought he saw a hint of a smile for a heartbeat, before she looked away again.

"She wasn't there."

"Who?"

"Her. River. Me . . . I don't know. I don't know what she's saying, she doesn't know- "

_Uh-oh. _Mal knew what it meant when River started referring to herself in the third person. But even as he realized that, he knew he couldn't let her hang.

"River," he whispered, reaching over and touching her shoulder, and her eyes focused again, and then he had a thought.

The first step to really healing those old wounds was always . . . .

"Tell me where you went," he said, quietly and gently, and those eyes flicked toward him for a moment. She closed them, and shook her head.

"Doesn't want to," she mumbled. He reached across with his other hand and took her shoulders.

"River, you can't run away from this. You can't hide. You have to face it someday."

Her eyes scrunched up tight, and she lowered her head. He felt vibrations run through her.

"But she doesn't want to be there," she mumbled, shaking her head. He saw wetness forming around her eyelashes. "She . . . I . . . doesn't want to go back. _Please_, don't send her-"

"You can't fight it if you don't face it," Mal said, tightening his grip around her shoulders. He injected that officer's tone, firm but reassuring, into his voice. "Are you going to keep running, Albatross? Are you gonna _hide_ from it?"

She went still for a few seconds, and Mal felt her tensing up. She opened her eyes, looked right at him, and he saw her jaw trembling. He saw the dam beginning to swell in her mind; and he remembered when he'd gotten the news about Shadow, near on seven years ago.

He understood.

He wrapped his arms around her right as the dam broke, and told her without words that it was okay to feel that way. She fell against him, and then violently began shaking, burying her head in his chest. Wild, uncontrolled sobs beat against him as he held the girl tight, letting her release it as he patted her back. Wetness soaked into his shirt, and her arms cinched tight around his chest.

It was familiar. He'd done this before, but it was a fair bit of time ago, distant memories of his time back on Shadow, before the war had hammered him into what he was today. Family, grieving and needing something or someone to lean on.

He didn't know anything of the pain she'd gone through, but he knew of his own pain, and he held that thought, letting her know she wasn't the only one, and that she wasn't alone. That she had a kindred, and though their horrors weren't the same, he understood what she felt. Memories of darkness and shadows, of things done and things seen that one never wanted to remember.

"S'okay, Albatross," he told her, just as he'd told Kaylee earlier. "S'okay."

Mal found himself rocking her back and forth while she let it out against him, and remembered one of his cousins in a similar situation, so long ago. Muffled sobs continued drifting up to him, mixed with unclear words. He tried listening, but only caught a few of them, random names, and, every now and then, a whispered plea to someone to not leave her. He heard Simon's name often, but as time passed, he started hearing Kaylee's being whispered, and then Jayne and, to Mal's surprise, his own name.

He didn't know how long it lasted. It felt like both an eternity and an instant, but when River finally slowed down, her sobs quieting and the shaking subsiding, he felt strangely exhausted. Mal kept his arms around her shoulders, holding the broken child against him, close and safe.

"S'okay, Albatross," he said again. He kept repeating that as she held him tight, letting the words soothe her and ease her back.

It was a long while before he felt her head move against his chest, and it slowly rose. She looked around the dining room for a moment.

"Isn't home?" she asked, her voice a tired whisper almost lost in the humming electrical thrum that ran through the ship.

"No, River," Mal said, almost as quiet. "This _is_ home."

She sniffled, pressing her head against his chest again, and squeezed his torso.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. Mal shook his head, understanding. It wasn't weakness to be a person, in his eyes. He reached down and picked up the glass of chocolate milk, handing it to her.

"All gotta do it sometime," he said. Had to let it out, had to release the pain, let other folk know you're hurting. Let other folk help.

Too bad he hadn't done that in . . . .

"If you can't run, you crawl," she whispered, and he nodded. She took another drink of the milk.

"And you can't crawl," he finished, "you get someone to carry you."

They were quiet for a good long while. Mal admitted that he hadn't felt like this in a while, letting the emotions run free, and he wondered how much of chance she'd gotten to do the same. He knew Simon's explanation, that she couldn't control her emotions, but that didn't mean she'd ever really let them loose like this, dealing with them face to face.

"Where?" River asked, after a while.

"Hm?"

"Carry you to where?"

Mal was silent a long while, and smiled, his expression tired.

"Forward," he whispered. "Same as always."

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** Oh, Buddha, the _elipses_. But then, you get those when you have River in the room. She's like a little frazzle-haired elipses factory.

And with that, we're at the end of Mosaic. That was a nice little development-heavy ride.

An interesting fact about Mosaic was that I pre-wrote nearly the entire thing, starting from the last chapter and working my way backward. That way I could make adjustments and plans to the story as needed. I actually had the entire thing finished before I posted the first chapter. It took me about a week to write, and let me assure you, it was one hell of a crazy week.

One of the core ideas I had going into this story was the idea of family. Mosaic was, well, a mosaic of all the different personalities and relationships of the crew, both canon and developed in this story. The family aspect of Firefly was always one of the things I loved the most about the series, and I wanted to show that in this arc, bringing the crew together in both peace and conflict. The epilogue, I think, was the single most difficult part of it all for me, as it had to bring back together all the disparate aspects of that family and forge it back into something resembling a whole.

The original version of this epilogue focused a lot more on Mal's guilt for bringing this kind of threat down on his crew, but I kept feeling like it was both hammering the point too hard, and more importantly, the epilogue was missing something, so I expanded it to include the rest of the crew's reactions after the day's events. The final scene between Mal and River suffered the most rewrites, and actually didn't have either the chocolate or Mal's reference to knocking River out, as neither of those had been worked into the story yet. I tried to make sure it wasn't overly sappy and tried to catch the feel of the series' own scenes involving River's breakdowns. Overall, I _think_ it did a good job tying all the disparate threads of Mal and River interaction in this arc together pretty well. Let me know what you think!

It'll be a while before the next arc gets written and uploaded; I've got a lot of coursework to do over the next month, so I won't have much time to write, but I could really use the break anyway.

Until next chapter . . . .


	29. Adrift: Prologue: Lightning

_**Part Four: Adrift**_

_**Prologue: Lightning**_

"Okay, got a good signal. This is our rock."

The swirling starscape outside twisted slightly, the dazzling brilliance stretching out in all directions like an ocean of still, eternal lights.

It got boring looking at that. Being out in the Black inured a man to the beauty of open space when one spent this much time between the worlds. Instead, as he drifted through the empty void, Captain Malcolm Reynolds' attention was focused entirely on a big, dull, gray rock.

"Bring it up," he ordered, looking "down."

_"Just a sec, Cap'n," _came the cheery reply, cracking over his radio.

"Below" him, the steel gray belly of _Serenity_ twisted slightly, and from her belly came a long, multi-jointed claw, extending outward toward the drifting gray rock mal hovered beside. He looked down through his pressure suit's visor and saw two more figures below, their drab suits almost invisible against the hull of the Firefly. They crouched beside the external mount that was set into the vessel's gut, the smaller figure manipulating a datapad hooked up to the mount.

Mal watched as the claw reached up, the long fingers of the salvager's talons stretching out. They clamped down around the asteroid carefully, as if afraid they would damage the blank hunk of space-stone.

Mal glanced back down, and the figure handling the datapad looked up. Though her face was obscured by the stars reflecting off the glass of her helmet, he clearly saw her raise a thumb. Behind the visor, Mal knew she was grinning.

_"Gotta good grip, Cap'n!" _Kaylee said. Mal second-checked her work, and nodded to himself.

"Looks fine up here, too. Start reeling her in."

Mal watched as the claw began to pull back, dragging the asteroid toward _Serenity's_ waiting belly hold. The device was one of the many bits of gear they'd cannibalized from Ott's ship a month and a half ago, and compared with the rest of _Serenity's_ tech, it stood out like Jayne at a midget convention. The thing was all shiny and pretty, with fresh, unflecked paint and fancy wiring. It had "Core" written all over it, along with equally unpleasant words like "stolen." _Serenity_ didn't even mount the hardpoints to handle it, so they'd had to bolt the thing onto the belly. They'd even had to wire the thing into _Serenity's_ electrical system to power it.

Mal had considered just selling the damn thing, but Zoe had convinced him that it might come in handy if they had to pull large salvage or asteroid mining, and barely a month had passed when this job came along.

Mal wasn't averse to honest shipping or mining work, but he preferred something with a bit more payoff. Like, say, an otherwise unremarkable asteroid with a pretty pile of contraband hidden inside of it.

"Okay, Kaylee, bring it in." He switched channels. "Wash, you ready?"

_"-a-ha-ha-haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"_

_"Three," _came the voice of his ship's copilot.

_"Only a three?" _Wash complained. _"Come on. I can do one better-"_

"Wash." Mal's tone switched to his unhappy-captain voice. "Bay depressurized?"

_"Oh, sorry!" _Wash replied, his surprised words accompanied by rapid fire clicking of buttons being pressed in a most furious manner, and switches being flicked most adroitly. _"Just a sec. Okay, give me a beat, need to cycle and compress. . . . should have it done in about twenty seconds. Plenty of time to bring our happy fun rock aboard."_

"Good," Mal replied, and switched channels. "Okay, Jayne, Kaylee, let's get this secured." Mal began pulling on the tether that ran back to Serenity's belly. "Get this finished before something happens."

_"Aw c'mon, Mal," _Jayne complained. _"Gonna jinx us."_

"Then let's move faster," Mal replied. "I want this to go smooth, and the more talkin' we do-"

Mal had plenty more to say, but the claw and the asteroid disagreed.

There was a sudden flash of light, and _Serenity_ lurched around. Mal blinked at the sudden motion, and opened his mouth to speak a stream of expletives as he realized what was happening. Then there was motion, and then there was contact, and something hard and massive slammed into his torso.

* * *

They sat, waiting, tensed. Their eyes locked together, brown against blue, unyielding and unblinking. There was only a hint of movement on either side, a tremor in one hand, a tightening of lips, the faintest snort of unruly congestion in nasal cavities.

His mouth opened slightly.

"That was at _least_ a four," he whispered, clutching the mass of shaped plastic in his left hand. Very slowly, the response came; a measured shaking of a head that sent dark curls waving.

"Three," she replied, her words firm and resolute.

They stared for another second, and both struck at the same time.

Spinning end over end in a vicious arc, the fanciful representation of a Londinium palm tree whipped toward him, even as his own arm pumped, launching the mass of plastic he had dubbed Spartacus back at his foe. She yelped, dropping behind the console, while the palm tree impacted solidly against his head, eliciting a stunned "ow!" from his side of the room.

He dropped behind cover, scrabbling for fresh ammunition. He frowned, his arms falling over his stegosaurus, dubbed a less inspirational "Larry." He peeked around the console, hunting for his foe.

"Children."

Wash looked up, to see Shepherd Book standing in the entrance to the bridge, arms crossed. The pilot shrugged.

"She started it," he offered, standing up. Something _thwopped_ against his head, and Wash looked over, hearing River giggle. He sent her his most furious glare, which made him look more like a petulant puppy than anything else.

"Really," Book replied, his tone indicating he didn't believe Wash's story.

"Wash disagrees that his evil laugh needs work," River piped in, climbing over the co-pilot's station and back into her chair.

"And of course, the only proper response to that is throwing dinosaurs at each other," Book replied.

"E_xact_ly," Wash said, picking up some of the scattered toys.

"I thought we were supposed to be keeping an eye open?" Book asked. "We've got three people EVA."

"Its nothing new, just a salvage run," Wash replied dismissively, sitting down and setting his toys back up. "I just had to set _Serenity_ into station keeping, and the scanners are primed to pick up anything moving in the asteroid belt. Not a whole lot else we can do to help things along."

Book nodded, looking past them toward the Black. Outside, distant asteroids could be seen, slowly drifting through the void, ranging from tiny fist-sized stones to gigantic planetoids the size of a heavy cruiser.

"So, how is it going?" the preacher asked, stepping over beside them.

"Almost got our big shiny rock secured," Wash replied. He glanced over the monitors. "Everything looks solid." Book nodded, and then glanced over to River. He immediately froze.

She was staring down at the console before her, eyes unfocused. A second passed, and the Shepherd took a step toward her, recognizing her "elsewhere" expression.

"River?" he asked. "Are you-"

"Lightning."

Book stopped dead in place. That tone, and the non-sequitur brought back a sudden flash of memory. Birthday party. Laughter. Cake.

_Fire._

River shot up, sitting ramrod straight, her eyes widening.

"_Lightning!" _she screamed, and every monitor and light in the room flashed and went dark.

The deck upended beneath Book, and he was launched across the room, stomach lurching as the bridge went pitch-black.

Then, the bridge was filled with an ear-piercing shriek of horror.

* * *

Centuries back on Earth-That-Was, ultrasound scanners often showed hazy, unclear images that took an expert to really decipher. Doctor Simon Tam knew this, because he'd studied them extensively back in medical school, and had familiarized himself with the displays in case he ever had to deal with a low-resolution model instead of the high-end holographic imagers he was accustomed to.

That proved useful now as he looked over the screen in the infirmary, showing Zoe and Wash's developing child. She sat beside him, looking at the datapad he held out before her, with as close to an expression of fascination as he'd ever seen on her face.

"So, this is . . . ."

"Yes," he replied. "I'm sorry I couldn't get a better image, as-"

"No, Doc," Zoe replied, looking up. A hint of a smile quirked around the edges of her mouth. "This is fine."

She still didn't show any outward signs of obvious pregnancy, Simon noted, but she wouldn't for at least another month. Still, Zoe had told Simon she was experiencing morning sickness, to which a set of sheets and one of Wash's shirts in the laundry had attested.

"I'll have to show this to Wash as soon as we get done," she added. Simon nodded, putting up the low-grade ultrasound device that they'd chipped in to buy. A high-end machine probably would have cost as much as half the ship put together, and while the last job had been lucrative, most of that had gone to ship repairs. A significant hunk of the leftover money had gone into buying the equipment for the infirmary, with even Jayne tossing in a good portion.

Simon privately suspected the mercenary had been faced with the relentless, undying fury of both his sister and Kaylee if he hadn't.

Zoe rose carefully, even though they both knew she didn't need to at this point in the pregnancy. She was a cautious type, and had actually opted out of the EVA job that Mal, Jayne, and Kaylee were doing right now because of that same caution. No one really blamed her for it, though it made Simon a bit nervous to have Kaylee floating out in the Black.

"Better get up to the bridge," she added, holding the datapad.

"Indeed," Simon added, smiling. "River and Wash being left alone in the same room . . . ."

"Yeah, it does freeze the blood a little," she replied, her smile coming back. "Thanks, Doc."

"My pleasure," he said, and watched her leave. As Zoe stepped outside, a shadow was visible at the door. Zoe spoke a few words, and then Inara slipped into the infirmary after her, wearing another of her elegant silken gowns.

"Good afternoon, Doctor," she said, and he smiled back.

"Inara." Simon paused, glancing out the door, but saw Zoe's legs moving up the stairs outside. "Is this about . . . ."

"Yes," she replied, nodding, her smile faltering a bit. Simon nodded, and moved across the room, opening a drawer to retrieve a syringe.

"I know you prefer to do these things privately," he said, checking the needle. "And I respect patient confidentiality. Still, monthly checkups are a bit frequent for this. Are you sure?"

"I am," Inara replied, sitting down on the patient chair in the middle of the room. "I usually go to a Core hospital, and normally I had checkups during my yearly Companion examination, but with all that's been happening lately . . . ."

"I understand," Simon replied, nodding. He stepped toward her with the syringe in hand. "But someone is eventually going to notice these repeated checkups."

"Mal already has his suspicions," Inara said, and that made him raise an eyebrow. He swabbed her bare arm, the clinical side of his mind impressed with how she was able to keep her skin so healthy out this far in remote territory. "He's already asked me, in his not so subtle way, what I've been doing with you so often."

"And?"

"I reminded him that it is none of his business what I do in my spare time," she replied, an enigmatic smile on her face.

"Since he hasn't punched me again," Simon remarked setting the needle against her vein, "I suspect he doesn't think it _that_ untoward."

"Mal isn't like that," Inara replied. "Not around me." Simon frowned.

She didn't flinch, which Simon had been impressed by the first time she'd asked him to take a blood sample. She was remarkably stoic at times, which he supposed was part of being a Companion.

"I seem to recall he beat a fop senseless because of a slight directed at you," he mused, drawing the blood. She smiled again.

"That's just Mal," she replied, her voice drifting away. Her eyes moved up toward one of the infirmary windows. "He's never really objected to the idea of someone else being with me. He may jump to conclusions, but he does accept my occupation. And my freedom of choice."

"I almost didn't think it in him," Simon mused. The syringe was almost full now. "But aside from the Captain, I suspect others are noticing these checkups. I'm certain River already knows that you visit me often, and probably knows why - though I still can't tell what she's thinking and she's certainly not telling me anything."

"You're not the only one," Inara replied, sighing.

"How are your sessions going?" he asked, removing the needle and capping it. He took out a jar of biofoam and released a tiny puff over the needle's entry point.

"They're not," Inara replied, shaking her head. "Every time I try to find her for a talk, she slips away. The few times she's come to visit me on her own, she doesn't talk much."

"What does she do when she visits you?" Simon asked, curious.

"She draws, mostly. River has shown an interest in calligraphy, too, though the idea that she's supposed to draw the kanji precisely seems lost on her."

"She knows she's supposed to draw them in a particular way," Simon said, smiling. "She just never liked obeying rules in the first place." He put the syringe into storage. "What does she draw?"

"People, places," Inara said. "Some of it is abstract. A lot of loose colors and soft shapes. I think she-"

The ship shuddered faintly, and they looked up. Simon glanced back down to Inara, and was about to remark on the odd happening, when there was a sudden lurch in the base of his gut.

The lights suddenly went out, bathing them in darkness, and the ship swerved violently. Inara and Simon both felt their feet leave the deck, and then they were weightless and airborne, the artificial gravity cutting off.

Inara heard a crash behind her and a gasp from Simon, before she hit one of the walls hard across her shoulder blades. She grunted, blinking, looking around in the sudden, encompassing darkness, when something warm touched her face.

There was a flicker of cold, blue light, the emergency lamps coming online. The infirmary was lit up in the stark illumination, and Inara saw surgical tools and equipment scattered around the room, floating in the sudden loss of gravity. She also saw dark spots drifting across the infirmary, perfect spheres of red. Some of them touched her face, the source of the unexpected warmth splashing over Inara's skin.

A half-dozen meters away, Simon stared at her, a mixture of shock and confusion on his face, framed by his dark hair. Her heart clenched up as she saw him.

A pair of surgical scissors were lodged deep in his chest.

* * *

-

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_ Well, _shit_.

So, here we go again, with another story arc. Updates for Adrift will be a bit sporadic, as this is crunch-time for me in school. Ah, well.

Until next chapter . . . .


	30. Chapter One: Weightless

_**Chapter One: Weightless**_

_Well, this is quite possibly the most ironic death I could ask for, _Malcolm Reynolds thought. _Crushed by my own contraband._

Outside the pressure suit's layers of glass and ceramic, he could see the stars gently spinning, every now and then the distant dark shapes of other asteroids appearing and drifting by. He could feel low pressure in his gut as he was pressed back against the unyielding metal, centripetal forces keeping him pinned in place.

Flares of light occasionally shot overhead as Mal tried to breathe and the asteroid objected. Sparks were flying and whipping over the top of Serenity from one of the two thrusters as it fizzled and struggled. The other thruster, meanwhile, was happily burning away, but at a thankfully low level of power; the same problem that had blown out the port engine must have killed most of the fuel lines to the starboard one as well.

_Serenity_ continued spinning, and Mal continued fighting to breathe, the asteroid crushing him in place.

_"Don't worry, Cap'n,"_ Mal heard Kaylee say. _"Just give us a minute to pop the pressure hydraulics."_

"Ain't goin' anywhere," he replied. _Never goes smooth, _he thought to himself. Even a simple asteroid transport job was trying to kill him. "Wash, you there? What's happenin'?"

There was no response over the radio.

_"No response, Cap'n,"_ Jayne added, as if Mal couldn't tell himself. _"Think the ship comms got fried."_

"You know what happened?" Mal asked, slowly inhaling.

_"Not a jot,"_ Kaylee replied quietly. _"Got bigger troubles to worry 'bout. Let me get that big rock offa ya."_

About thirty meters away, on _Serenity's_ belly, a flare of light erupted from a plasma torch as it cut into metal. Climbing over the claw's actuators on the base were two figures in pressure suits, one large and imposing, the other almost insignificant beside him.

_"Almost got it off,"_ Jayne Cobb said, igniting the torch one more time. Beside him, Kaylee watched anxiously, her zero-gee toolbox in hand. She kept glancing up the side of the hull, along the length of the claw and toward the asteroid it held in its grip, currently crushing the Captain. Her eyes drifted up toward the slowly spinning starfield overhead, and a dizzy sense of vertigo struck her. Kaylee focused her gaze back toward the deck and then toward the malfunctioning claw.

_Serenity _herself was dark; the electrical blowout that had seen to that. Kaylee knew she was going to have to give her baby a good long run over once they had this sorted out, see where the problem originated from. Judging by the way the boat was spinning, she knew the basics: they'd lost one engine, the other was firing on low power, half the systems were down, and the asteroid claw had gone limp just as Mal was helping haul it in. The combination of inertia, loss of control, and the spinning ship had slammed both Captain and asteroid against the hull, and was slowly crushing Mal to death.

Another day on the job.

_"Got it,"_ Jayne said, pulling the broken panel away from the base of the claw. A tangled mess of wires and other machinery was visible in the space beyond, and Kaylee moved forward, boots stepping carefully across the metal. She peered inside, shining her light on the machinery within.

_"What are we lookin' for?"_ Jayne asked, moving up beside her.

"Gotta reset the hydraulics so the claw can start movin' again," she explained. "Went limp when the electrical system blew. Toldja we shouldn't have hooked it to the main power supply."

_"Yeah, yeah,"_ Jayne muttered as she peered deeper into the mass of incomprehensible machinery. He spotted a large cylinder overhead. _"What's that? Looks like the pump."_

"Pressurized gas piston," she said quickly, batting his hand away. He started to glare at her, until she spoke again. "Careful, looks damaged. That thing blows it could launch us both into the Black. Not what we're lookin' for anyway."

"Shee-nao_ high tech crap_," Jayne grumbled. _"Can't they just make it simple-like?"_ Kaylee found herself agreeing. Whoever designed this thing wasn't all that bright when it came to engineering. The fact that they'd needed to use the plasma torch to cut out the access panel because the manual override was _electric_ told her that.

"Okay, I see it," she said, starting to dig deeper. She spotted the device in question, part of the claw's internal computers, and hooked her datapad into it. She started to access the system. "Cap, get ready. Just need a sec to pop this here, get the hydraulics working again, and we'll get it right offa-"

She was cut off as Jayne shouted something. The burly mercenary reached up, grabbing her around the waist and yanking her out of the way. He shoved her aside, and then the world around her exploded.

They were operating in an asteroid belt. Micrometeorites were a common danger, and one the size of Kaylee's thumb ripped through the space she'd been occupying a moment before at a speed that would have pulverized her skull. Instead, the little rock slammed into the claw's inner workings. There was a sudden burst of undeniable force, and then the stars began to spin around her. Her gut began to twist and churn, and then Kaylee realized with absolute horror what had just happened.

The gas piston had blown, and she'd been launched off the side of _Serenity_ and into the Black.

* * *

Zoe was moving through the mess hall when the ship spun hard, and the lights cut off.

She'd been in zero gravity enough times before to react almost instinctively when it went out. As the ship lurched and she was pitched into the air, Zoe rolled over in the direction of the wall she was being flung towards. Her legs coiled up underneath her, and hit the wall, absorbing the impact.

Emergency lighting came on after a second, and she looked around, watching for loose objects. Fortunately, all the knives were secured, though some plates and dishes had been flung about. She'd have to keep an eye out for broken glass.

As the lights flickered back on, a scream rippled from the general direction of the bridge. She recognized River's voice instantly. Zoe reached out for a handhold to pull herself up the room toward the crew corridor when she heard another cry, this one coming up the rear stairwell.

"Zoe!" Inara called, her voice frantic. "Zoe! Its Simon!"

She didn't need to hear anything more; Zoe had been around enough battlefields to know the timbre of someone calling for a medic. She hesitated for an instant, still hearing River's screaming from the bridge. Very quickly, she put together what was happening: Simon was injured, which was undoubtedly causing River's cries of shock.

The girl had Wash up there to look after her, and probably Shepherd Book, too. With that understanding, Zoe twisted and started clambering back down the mess hall toward the rear stairwell, and pulled herself down the railing. Once back down on the lower levels, she pulled herself along the wall toward the infirmary, and could see Inara already inside, hands over Simon's chest. The doctor looked pale, with an expression she'd seen plenty of times in the war.

The infirmary was filled with floating droplets of his blood. Zoe pushed herself across the room toward Simon, trying to remember her first-aid training as best she could. The surgical scissors that were embedded in his chest told her all she needed to know.

"Any other injuries?" she asked quickly, pulling the wounded doctor toward the bed. He needed to be stabilized, both externally and internally, but she couldn't do the latter without the former.

"No," Simon breathed, his words pained. Zoe gestured toward the bed, and Inara pulled him along. "I . . . can't tell from here, but I'm certain its pierced my lung. Just . . . right of the hilum, if I'm guessing correctly . . . ."

"Looks like," Zoe agreed, strapping him down to the bed. This wasn't a gunshot wound, but the scissors had entered his torso at an odd angle. The amount of blood that was seeping out told her the wound wasn't a clean penetration, and the scissors must have twisted on entry.

"Inara," she said, looking up. "Get me some biofoam, and the medical scanner. I need to get a look at internal damage. Quickly!"

* * *

The bridge lights cut back on, and Wash looked across the room. Book had hit the far wall behind the operations station, but looked uninjured as he pushed off. Meanwhile, curled up in a tight ball against the forward bridge windows was River, still screaming. One hand clutched the side of her head, while the other was holding a spot on her upper chest.

"What happened?" Book called as he shoved off the wall and toward River, while Wash scanned the consoles. Half the screens were dark or flickering with static, and the rest flashed a series of angry red warning lights that told him quite succinctly that "you are humped."

"Electrical blowout!" he said quickly, checking the systems. River screamed again, and he could barely hear himself. "Port thruster offline, starboard thruster running at ten percent and firing out of control. Engine offline. Gravity, offline, main power out. Life support is still running, thank his Buddhainess."

His copilot's screams were dying off, replaced by gasps and panting, and her eyes were wide and blank. Book reached her, planting his feet against the bridge windows, and clasped her shoulders.

"River, are you okay?" he asked quietly, shaking her to get her attention. "River? Are you hurt?"

She blinked slowly, eyes focusing on Book after a moment.

"Simon," she squeaked faintly.

He understood immediately. The Shepherd knew of River's ability to sense the physical state of others nearby, and her reaction whenever her brother was injured had been severe, to say the least.

"Oh, mother of humping bunnies," Wash said under his breath as he worked on the consoles, and Book looked back toward him.

"What's happened?"

In response, Wash hit a few keys, shaking his head.

"Bad things. External cams are showing the arm's busted. The captain's stuck between a rock and the hull, and - oh, God!_ Kaylee_!"

* * *

Jayne saw the explosion, a billowing white cloud of expanding compressed gas, and flying out the other side was a spinning brown and gray environment suit.

"Kaylee!" he screamed, and then his blood ran cold as a snapping white line flew past.

The micrometeorite had severed her tether.

Jayne Cobb did the only thing he could think of, and leapt off the side of the ship after her.

His powerful legs, built up by two decades of furious iron-pounding and relentless physical exercise, sent him hurtling off the side of the ship. He'd gotten about ten meters off the boat before he remembered to check and see if his own tether was secured, but a swift glance showed it was.

_"Jayne?"_ he heard Kaylee's voice, tight and terrified. He recognized that tone; girl wasn't exactly comprehending the dire straits she was in, mostly because her mind wouldn't let her, even though she understood just how bad things were somewhere inside.

"Hold up, Kaylee," he breathed, even though he knew she couldn't do anything but make the out of control spinning worse. The gas explosion hadn't had a huge amount of force behind it, but the girl was lightweight, and it had hit with enough strength to overwhelm the cheap magnetic locks on her magboots. She was tumbling away at an odd angle, but at least he was closing with her, his legs giving him more push.

Almost there. She was only a couple dozen meters away. Jayne glanced down, double-checking to make sure he had enough length on his tether, and saw to his dismay that it was rapidly running out. He muttered a curse.

_"Jayne?"_ Kaylee asked. _"That didn't sound shiny . . . ."_

"Gonna be okay, Kaylee," he replied quickly, and then realized he was moving at the wrong angle. He was going to miss her by a few meters. Holding his next curse back to keep from frightening her, Jayne reached down to a small console built into his suit's forearm. He picked a spot on one side of his suit, and hit a couple of keys.

There was the briefest hiss, and air pumped out of the seal - his own air supply. Jayne shifted slightly due to the thrust of the escaping air, and found himself more on course with Kaylee. She was less than a dozen meters away now, and he reactivated the tiny seal in his suit's flank.

The tether was almost gone. His arms shot out toward her.

"Kaylee! Grab me!"

Her own arms flew out wildly, trying to grab at him. Jayne's fingers brushed hers, and he tightened his grip, only to have her slip away, the violence of her spin pulling the mechanic away from him.

_"Jayne!"_ she screamed desperately, hands flailing. He continued reaching for her, and then a murderously powerful tug hit him, Jayne came to a dead halt.

The tether was out.

"No! _Gorram_ it, no!" Jayne shouted, arms still outstretched. No! He was gonna lose her! he couldn't-

The remains of Kaylee's snapped tether floated past, almost out of reach. Cursing in horrified desperation, he reached toward the cord.

For an instant, Jayne thought he'd missed that too, but then Kaylee's flight suddenly halted, and her body spun back toward him. Frantically, Jayne yanked back on the tether, gripped tenuously in his hands, and started hauling her back toward him.

"Gotcha!" he said quickly, as much to reassure himself as to calm her. "I gotcha, Kaylee!"

* * *

Kaylee fought to steady her breathing as she saw Serenity growing before her. She'd almost been lost, left tumbling out in the Black. The thought of being left in the cold emptiness sent shivers down her spine.

At that moment, she wanted Simon more than _anything_.

_"Kaylee, you okay?"_ Mal's voice called over the radio, and she shook away her reactive fear after a second.

"Sh-shiny, Cap'n," she whispered. From this angle, she had a good view of the disabled claw that was pinning Mal, and it didn't look good.

_"Can we still fix the _gorram_ thing?"_ Jayne asked as he pulled them back toward the ship's hull. Kaylee blinked, and shook her head.

"No, no," she said quickly. Inside her helmet, she frowned, brow furrowing. "With the gas piston blown, I can't get the hydraulics working, and that means-"

_"Take your word for it,"_ he replied. _"Got any other plans?"_

"Uh, gimme a sec," Kaylee said, thinking as fast as she could and considering her options. The only options now were to get the arm off Mal the old-fashioned way. The torch wouldn't work, the outer casing of the arm itself was too thick, all the motors and actuators were protected by layers of plating. They'd need something big, an explosive to breach the arm, but-

_"Kaylee, you got something?"_

"One sec, Cap'n," she replied absently. No, an explosive on the arm was too close to Mal. Could rupture his suit. They'd need to blow the arm at the base, but it was too thick there for any simple charge she and Jayne could rig up. Their heavy explosives were sealed up inside the ship.

Kaylee tried her radio, but as with the others, she couldn't raise the boat itself.

_"Gettin' more heavy by the breath, Kaylee . . . ."_

"I said _wait_ a sec, Cap'n," she hissed. By now, they were almost back to the hull, and Jayne gently set her down. She looked over the arm that had been so crudely bolted to the belly of her girl, and-

Bolts.

Kaylee crouched against the hull, looking down at the set of metal bolts that connected the machine to the boat. The arm was held down by six of them along its base, with a gap of about ten centimeters between the bottom of the base and the hull itself. Cabling ran through _Serenity's_ outer skin into the machine.

They needed . . . .

"Jayne, how hot does thruster fuel cook?" she asked, looking up.

_"Hell if I know,"_ he replied. _"Burns hot-"_

"Hot enough to burn through cheap vacuum bolts?" she asked.

_"I dunno,"_ he replied quickly. _"Damn things are tough, gotta hold up to reentry temps."_

Kaylee frowned again, running the math in her head. She'd never had a head for arithmetic like she did for engineering, but she'd learned it anyway because she needed to know.

No, the fuel didn't cook hot enough to burn through the bolts, she quickly realized. Not long enough, at any rate. They needed . . . .

Kaylee winced. _Serenity_ was gonna hate her for doing that to her wings, but the mechanic knew it was the only way.

* * *

"Okay, he got her," Wash whispered, visibly relaxing.

"What are they doing?" Book asked, having drifted back toward him. On the external cameras, Kaylee and Jayne were clambering long the side of the ship's hull, toward the operational thruster. Jayne was holding his plasma torch, and Kaylee was waving for him to hurry along.

"No clue," the pilot replied, frowning. He hit a few switches on the radio controls, and tried calling them again. No response. "Comms are still out. Definitely looks like we had an electrical blowout. I'm not even getting an internal response from the radio antennae."

"Can you fix it?" Book asked, and Wash shrugged helplessly, climbing out of his seat and dropping underneath the pilot's station.

"Might, might not," he replied, pulling open a panel. A waterfall of multicolored wires dropped out, along with a wisp of smoke. Wash stuck his head inside, along with a penlight, and began poking around.

The air around Book shifted, and he looked up and away from Wash. The Shepherd turned toward the front window, and saw that River was gone. Spinning around, he saw her grab onto the wall at the rear of the bridge and pull herself down into the crew corridor. For a moment, the old priest was surprised at her grace, the girl pulling herself through the zero gravity environment like a fish through water, before he started after her.

"River, wait!" Book called pushing off the pilot's console and chasing after her. He knew immediately where the girl was headed, and while he wasn't worried about her hurting herself or anyone else, Book knew it would be a good idea to keep an eye on her.

Wash didn't spare more than a quick glance to make sure Book had the situation under control before he stuck his head back under the console. He reached into the mess of wires and began pulling and rearranging, isolating the ones that had fused or melted by the electrical surge. He didn't know what exactly had happened in the Firefly's electrical systems, but he suspected the drive discharge capacitor was the problem. Mal hadn't replaced that in years . . . .

A minute later, a sudden thrum of power ran through the console as Wash reconnected the wires, and he let out a cry of manly triumph. The pilot pushed off and climbed back over the top of the console, hitting the radio.

"Kaylee, you there?" he asked, grabbing the microphone. Wash waited a second, and then repeated the call. No response. "Jayne, you getting this? Hello? Captain? Anyone there?"

Silence came back, and Wash gave out a few choice epithets. He checked over the console, and saw that the sensors were coming back. At least, the thermals and radiation detectors were, which was better than nothing. Wash fired them back up, trying to get a look at what was happening in space around them.

The sensors pinged immediately, and he frowned. He picked out a large spike of thermal energy several hundred kilometers outside the asteroid belt. Nothing could produce that much power except a ship, and it looked like the ship was heading toward them, albeit slowly.

He flicked another few switches, increasing the resolution and bringing up the passive radiation detector, to identify the emissions. Almost immediately, he got returns, but ones that confused him. The increased thermal resolution told him that the majority of the incoming emissions were blue-shifted - in other words, being emitted towards them. The emissions from thrusters or engines would normally be red-shifted, moving away from them, at least if the vessel was approaching.

The radiation emissions were even odder. The majority of the incoming radiation was a mixture of all types: alpha, beta, and gamma, plus what looked like released isotopes. That would only happen if the ships' fuel was leaking straight from the core. That meant-

Wash froze.

A ribbon of dull ache flared up along his chest, sympathy pains from the long scar her had stretching across his chest.

_"Wuh de tyen ah," _the pilot breathed, his words trembling in apprehensive horror.

* * *

A flash of lightning arced out of the open panel and struck the ship's hull a few meters away. Jayne leapt back, letting out a curse of surprise.

_"You sure its supposed to go that way?"_ Jayne asked, ignited plasma torch in hand.

"Yes," Kaylee replied, leaning over the gap in the ship's hull. She reached in, pulling a cable backward, and then stuck her other hand inside. She felt around the interior of the wing strut that held the thruster. Or more specifically, she felt around inside the engine section, careful not to touch the edges of the rent Jayne had made with his torch. The edges were glowing white-hot, and it would be a long time before the heat was radiated away from _Serenity_.

Her fingers moved down inside the mechanism. Inside her helmet, Kaylee furrowed her brow, lips pressing together as she maneuvered through the gap by touch alone. Her fingers moved inside the actual rotating mechanism itself, and she knew if she screwed up, it would snap around in a heartbeat and cut her hand off.

_"You got it?"_ Jayne asked, his gruff voice tinged with worry.

"Hold on, _one_ sec," she whispered, touching the mechanism she was looking for. Her body tensed up as she found the wires. It would be done in an instant once she hotwired them. One popped out, and then another, and with one hand she began to twist them together.

Kaylee froze just as she was about to reinsert them, and stilled her breath.

_Okay, okay. Give me a bit, here,_ Serenity. _Just don't-_

She stuck the wires back in and yanked her hand out.

Through her suit's boots, Kaylee felt the shock of vibration, and before her, the thruster flipped over. It moved in an eyeblink, switching positions and counter-thrusting along the direction it had been turning moments before.

Inside the ship's hull, the mechanism slammed closed, right as Kaylee yanked her arm out. The metal crashed against itself with a heavy _thunk_ that she felt through her boots, and Kaylee pulled her hand out of the hole. She stumbled back a step, only held to the deck by her magnetic boots, and let out a laugh of exultant exhaustion.

_"Kaylee!"_ Jayne yelled, and she looked up at his as he ran up beside her. Then, she caught sight of a blinking red light on her helmet's HUD, and could faintly hear hissing. White vapor traced past her, and could smell the scent of burnt fabric.

The boiling-hot metal edge had burned right through the arm of her suit.

_"Seal it!"_ Jayne hissed, pulling a seal out of his suit's emergency pack. He grabbed her arm right above the elbow and wrapped the seal around her arm, pulling it tightly. The seal, a tightening loop of adhesive plastic, squeezed tight against her arm, even as frigid cold started creeping along her arm.

Kaylee stared down at the burnt hole in her arm, trying to control her breathing as she realized how close that had been.

"Th-thanks, Jayne."

_"Yeah,"_ he replied quickly. Inside his helmet, she saw him nod. _"Don't worry none."_

* * *

On the other side of the ship, Mal felt the crushing weight ease off of him, just as the edges of his vision were starting to go dark. He blinked, opening his eyes, and saw the asteroid slowly pulling away. The vista of stars and distant planets was twisting around in the opposite direction now, and the asteroid was being pulled away by the new direction the ship was rotating.

Grunting, feeling heavy pain running through his ribs, Mal pushed himself up and locked his boots back to the ship's hull. He looked around, trying to get his bearings again now that he wasn't busy dying, and started moving toward the belly hold.

"Kaylee?" he called. "Kaylee, you there?"

_"Yeah, Cap'n,"_ she replied quickly. _"Are you okay?"_

"Got a mighty ache in my ribs, but I'm still breathing," he replied, trudging along the flank of Serenity. "What happened back there? You hurt?"

_"Nah, we're shiny,"_ Kaylee replied, and as he rounded the bottom of the belly hold, he could see them hurrying toward him as fast as they could in zero gravity. _"Had a couple of close calls, but Jayne was lookin' out for me."_

Mal looked toward the burly mercenary, obvious even in the anonymous bulk of a pressure suit, and nodded.

"Good job," he said, and Jayne nodded behind his own helmet, which made the gesture look like a rough shrug. As Mal got closer, though, he saw a black ring clamped around Kaylee's bicep, and he started.

"Kaylee, what happened to your suit?" he asked, and she raised the arm in question. Mal could see the gash burnt down its side.

_"Its alright,"_ she assured him. _"Just a minor suit breach. not losing too much oxygen, and I can still feel in it. Mighty cold, though."_

"Let's get you back inside," Mal replied, shaking his head. "Wanna have the doctor take a look at you anyways."

_"You too,"_ she replied immediately as they headed toward the front cargo bay doors. _"No tellin' what kinda troubles you had in your innards, that big rock crushin' you like that."_

"Later," Mal said, reaching the doors. His arm rose, grabbing the manual release. "Need to find out what went wrong with my boat."

_"Looked like electrical blowout,"_ Kaylee said. The airlock slid open, and they climbed inside. _"Thrusters are offline. Probably lost control from the bridge, if Wash couldn't fix things."_ The doors slid shut behind them, and the airlock sequence started up.

_"Radio's out too,"_ Jayne added, as they heard the reassuring hiss of the airlock operating. At least atmosphere was working. _"Guessin' half our systems got fried."_ Mal grunted.

"Right. Let's just get inside, get squared away and checked out. Then we can fix up the ship."

_"Why ain't the gravity on?"_ Jayne asked as the airlock finished cycling air into the room. Mal frowned, pulling off his helmet, and sniffed the air.

"Must be the same issue with the engines," he said, opening the inner airlock door while the others doffed their helmets. "Keep your magboots on." The door opened up, and sure enough, most of the cargo in the bay looked like it was trying to break free of its lashings. Mal walked over toward the intercom as the others entered the bay, and the door locked behind him.

"Wash, you hear me?" Mal called over the intercom, and after a second, his pilot's voice returned, filled with a mixture of relief and pants-soiling terror.

_"Mal? Oh, thank Buddha. Get up here!"_

The alarm in his pilot's voice sent a new wave of adrenaline running through Mal.

"What happened?"

_"Ship's disabled, we got incoming, and I think Simon's hurt,"_ Wash replied quickly. _"Need you up here right away!"_

"Simon?" Kaylee breathed, horror spreading over her features. She immediately started across the bay as fast as the magboots would let her.

"Jayne, got with her," Mal said quickly, disengaging his and drifting up into the air. "And find River, make sure she's not lost it!"

"Gotcha," the mercenary said, chasing after Kaylee as she hurried across the bay. Mal kicked off the deck and shot up toward the ceiling and the doorway leading to the bridge. He grabbed onto the railing of the catwalk by the door, reengaged the boots against the wall, and walked up toward the bridge.

"What's happening?" the captain demanded as he climbed up into the bridge, resetting his boots to walk on the deck. Wash looked up from the chair he was strapped into and hit a couple of keys, lighting up the copilot's console. Mal moved up toward it, looked at the display, and felt a chill more suited to the deepest ends of the Black.

"These emissions are blue-shifted," he whispered. Standard radiation, only in huge amounts, with blue-shifted reactor fuel isotopes mixed in. That meant . . . .

"No core containment," Mal said, looking up and meeting Wash's eyes. He then turned, looking back toward the rear of the bridge, and the marks left in the walls by a pair of harpoons that had nearly killed his pilot six months ago.

Mal swallowed. Not now. _Not now._

"Reavers."

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** I apologize for the relatively short length of this chapter. I think all of "Adrift" is going to be about this length, maybe a bit longer. Also, it took me a while, but this is normal for me and my usual holiday slump. The chapter itself got rewritten a couple of times because I was dissatisfied with the space action and the way things were progressing. I also injected a little bit of basic real-world physics in this chapter, like how slowly it would take heat to radiate away in a vacuum. That's why Kaylee is okay even with her suit being breached; as long as there's an oxygen seal and she gets back inside the ship soon, she would be fine.

Obviously, this story is using some elements of "Out of Gas," particularly with the plot device of the ship being disabled. However, as is the norm with my stories, its going to be a bit more action intensive. Obviously, we've got everyone's favorite bunch of space pirates involved, and there's a few more issues and enemies the crew will need to deal with sooner or later.

Until next chapter . . . .


	31. Chapter Two: Silence

_**Chapter Two: Silence**_

Rust.

There was rust. It would have to be cleaned. Very _small_, too _small_ for Mal or Kaylee to see, but _it scraped the __fingers _as she pulled herself along.

_**Pain.**_

_Cold steel_, slicing one point one three centimeters to the right. Correction of point two six centimeters to account for her smaller size relative to his.

The lack of gravity made movement difficult. Her toes _tapped and twisted_, fingers scrabbling at handholds. moving over flecking paint. Kaylee needed to repaint the walls. She never liked that shade of yellow, maybe a nice red.

_welling up in the throat_

She coughed, grabbing her neck as _**warmth**_ ran up _his_ mouth **below**.

_thrashing twisting __**gummy blackness **__seeping in __through the veins_

She shook her head, gasping, rubbing her neck. There was _**brown**_ everywhere, her strands _refusing to sit still and be disciplined_.

An echo.

**Fear, **_**chill**_** and ****worrisome**. _Lacerating pain along the chest._ **Hunger**.

She shivered, and she _knew_. _Their __**blood**_wasn't washing away, _sticking to her fingers_. _Innocent_ blood.

"Reavers," she whispered, shaking again, and then grabbed a handhold, pulling herself further along.

_"Simon."_

* * *

"Okay," he whispered. "Okay. I need you to . . . to . . . ." His words trailed off, eyes unfocusing.

"Simon," Zoë breathed, clutching the scissors in one hand and the scanner in the other. The instrument was pressed to his chest, angled to give them a view of his torso, which was displayed on the monitor over the bed. "Simon. Doctor!"

He jerked, blinking, and gasped. His eyes, glazed over, tried to focus again, but drifted away.

The painkillers they'd used on him were causing him to drift into and out of lucidity. Zoë kept calling his name, trying to bring him back into focus. She knew they were playing a dangerous game; too little anesthetic and he wouldn't be able to speak because of the pain. Too much and he would pass out, and they needed his help to treat the wound.

"Simon, I need you to tell me what I'm seeing," she called, and reached up, shaking his head. He blinked again, and his eyes focused for a second on the monitor.

"Penetration one centimeter right of the hilium," he said quickly. "Looks like . . . some tearing and internal bleeding."

"What do we do?"

"I feel light," he said, eyes glazing for a moment. "No . . . no gravity. You'll need to move fast. The bleeding has to be stopped or . . . or . . . ."

He started coughing, then jerking spasmodically, and Zoë had to release the scissors lest they worsen the tearing.

"Inara, help me!" Zoë was yelling, but the Companion was already grabbing Simon and holding him down as best she could in the zero gravity.

"Inara, muscle relaxant and more sedative!" Zoë ordered. They were out of time, and they needed to get Simon stilled before things got worse; the relaxant would stop the involuntary thrashing, while the sedative would put him under and slow his heartbeat, reducing blood loss.

Zoë grimaced. If he was right, and he was bleeding into his lungs-

Simon's thrashing stopped suddenly as Inara came back with the syringes, and then his head jerked forward. He couched, and blood erupted from his mouth, flying up into the air and forming into crimson globes that arced toward the ceiling. Inara recoiled from the blood, but then grabbed Simon's arm and began injecting both chemicals into his veins.

They didn't have time. Zoë grabbed the biofoam injector and took hold of the scissors. If he bled much more into his lungs, he would start drowning in his own blood. She pulled them out as quickly and cleanly as possible, and a fresh wave of blood emerged from the wound, drifting past her. Without pausing, she inserted the biofoam injector into the wound and pumped it.

White foam mixed with erupting crimson, and a moment later, the blood flow cut off. The chemical filled the wound and expanded, sealing off the deep injury and preventing further bleeding, at least from Simon's torso, though she had no idea how well it was working inside his lung. At the very least, the lung itself looked like it was in danger of deflating.

"Is he going to live?" Inara asked, securing the needles and the scissors. Zoë frowned again.

"He was coughing up blood. We need to clear his breathing so he doesn't choke."

As she spoke, Zoë caught movement out the corner of her eye, and looked up in time to see someone climbing around the door to the infirmary. She recognized the slender form before she'd even come fully into view.

"Simon?" River said, spinning as she pulled herself through the door to plant her feet against the wall and arrest her momentum. She looked at her brother, strapped down and covered in blood, with more of it drifting around the infirmary, and froze in place.

"Simon," she breathed, horror dawning on her features as she stared at her injured brother, and she started to drift into the room.

No. _Not_ good. The last thing Zoë needed right now was an uncontrollable, possibly hysterical girl getting in her way. She opened her mouth to speak, but then Inara broke away and intercepted her.

"River, sweetie,' she said, catching the girl. "_Mei-mei_, you can't be in here now."

"No, no, Simon . . . Simon, he . . . ." a dozen emotions flashed over River's face as Zoë tried clearing the blood from her brother's lungs. She started trying to push past Inara, but the Companion grabbed her wrists and maneuvered back around in front of her. Inara pushed back slightly, halting River's momentum and holding her in place.

Even as she worked, Zoë found herself shocked at Inara's bravery; they both knew how easily River could hurl Inara aside if she was inclined to. As it was, the bare terror and panic on the girl's face and in her voice told them both that she was dangerously close to losing control.

"_Mei-mei_," Inara whispered soothingly, over River's frightened babbling, which was rapidly losing coherence. The girl was starting to cry, and Inara could feel the panic about to break out through her arms. The Companion stilled herself, understanding that any apprehension they were feeling was no doubt feeding back into the reader's mind, further addling her. "_Mei-mei_!"

The last words were delivered just sharply enough to break through the jumbled emotions, and River's mumbling cut off as she looked up. Tears were floating out of her eyes, sparkling in the emergency lighting, but she was meeting Inara's gaze, which was the important part.

"Zoë is not going to let him die," Inara said, straight and direct, and injected every ounce of confidence she had into both her words and her thoughts. River was silent for several seconds, sniffing quietly. Behind them, Zoë finished clearing Simon's lungs, and even though blood was floating freely about the infirmary, he was breathing normally.

Behind the girl, pulling himself through the doorway to the infirmary, Inara saw Shepherd Book. The preacher's eyes flicked around the room, taking everything in, and then he reached out, touching the girl's bare shoulder. River started, and then looked back over her shoulder. A heartbeat passed, and Book smiled, holding out his hand toward her, and Inara released the girl's wrists. Her hand slowly rose and took the preacher's, and he led her back out of the infirmary, still sniffling.

Inara turned back to Zoë, who was strapping Simon back down.

"Is he-"

"He's stable, as best I can make it," she said. Her eyes flicked toward the hatch. "I can handle him, if you need to help the preacher." Inara nodded, and began to push herself out of the infirmary, closing the door behind her as she did. As she left, Zoë drifted across the room and opened a panel on the wall, pulling out a wide-nozzled pressure vacuum. She was about to turned it on, and began moving across the room, sucking up the clouds of loose-flying blood. the device was designed to clean up blood and other fluids from the infirmary floor, but it worked just fine in zero gravity.

A few moments later, over the quiet noise of the vacuum's engine, she heard the intercom chirp.

_"Zoë, you there?"_

It was Mal's voice. Zoë pushed off the wall and drifted across the room, dodging some of the blood clouds, and reached the wall. Outside, she could hear voices talking, but ignored them as she activated the intercom.

"I'm here, Mal," she replied. "Doc's stable. Lot of blood, but he should live."

_"Good," _Mal said, his voice a bit distracted. _"Listen, Zoë, we got some bad news."_

* * *

Jayne cursed as he moved across the bay, walking with the peculiar stick-step gait of someone wearing magboots in zero gravity. Kaylee was better at moving in zero-gee than he was - having to do vacuum repairs tended to bestow that sort of expertise on a person - so she was moving a bit faster, in spite of his longer legs.

Well, that and she was scared. Terror lent a girl extra speed, and she was all bent out of shape with the news about the Doc. He considered just disabling the magboots and chasing after her through the air, but he didn't have anything to push off of, and if he missed he'd likely smack his head against the wall.

She disappeared into the hatch at the back of the bay a few steps a head of Jayne, and he followed right behind her. He heard her call Simon's name a few times as she ran down the steps as quickly as she could. He clomped down the stairs, glancing into the infirmary as he moved.

_Damn. _That was a lot of blood. Zoë was trying to clean it up, he could see at a glimpse, and then he looked back down toward Kaylee.

The mechanic was rounding the corner as fast as she could when she was intercepted by Inara. The Companion reached out, catching her as she walked forward, and Kaylee came to a halt in surprise.

"Simon," Kaylee said quickly, frantic. "Is he . . . is he-" Before Inara could answer, Kaylee was looking past her into the infirmary, and saw the clouds of blood floating about in the zero gravity. She reacted about as well as Jayne expected, and her shriek made him wince.

"He's okay, he's okay," Inara was saying, wrapping her arms around Kaylee to keep her from panicking. "Zoë's taking care of him. He's going to be fine." Jayne moved up behind them, not certain whether he should try to help out calming Kaylee down. As he stepped into the common room, he saw movement past them, and looked up.

The Shepherd and River were floating a few meters back. The old preacher had his arm around River, comforting-like, and was talking quietly to her, while she huddled up in a little ball, arms around her chest and eyes tightly closed. She had to be hearing or seeing or feeling _something_ that was putting her off like that.

He hovered over the group, not sure what he should be doing. Zoë had things under control from what he could see - the Doc seemed to be stable, and if she was vacuuming blood instead of treating him, he had to be doing fine. Both the girls were being tended to, though both were pretty badly off, with River looking like she'd been punched in the stomach and Kaylee hugging Inara and staring into the infirmary at Simon's still body. Jayne had never been one to comfort folks before, and he wasn't trying to start it now with the duty taken by others better at it.

He drifted back, taking up a spot on one of the walls, and kept an eye open in case anyone needed him for something. He considered going into the infirmary and helping Zoë, but he wasn't a particularly gifted medic; hurting people was his specialty. Still, seeing both the girls bent up like this and blood staining Inara's clothes bothered him more than a bit.

It took some doing on Inara's part, but Kaylee seemed to be calming down, recovering from the initial shock. Though she still looked like she was about to start crying, she'd quieted down and her breathing was going back to normal, and instead she just kept staring into the infirmary at the Doc's unmoving body.

"How did . . . how it happen?" she finally asked. "What's wrong with him?"

Before Inara could answer, Zoë slipped out of the infirmary, her clothes also stained with some of the doc's blood. Jayne saw the look on her face, one that was dark and grave, and that immediately set off warning bells in his head.

"Is he okay?" Kaylee asked quickly, stepping around Inara. Zoë nodded, though she exhaled while doing so, as if something was deeply bothering her.

"Yeah, he'll live, best I can tell," she replied. There was a flicker across Inara's face, and it took Jayne a second to realize that she could have said something a little bit more confident than that, but it was too late now.

"Somethin' wrong?" Jayne asked, pushing away from the wall. In response, the intercom chirped again.

_"Everyone, this is the Captain," _Mal said, his voice flat and tight. Jayne's blood ran cold; he recognized Mal's "I'm the captain and this is serious" tone. _"Long range just picked up some ships heading our way."_ There was a pause.

_"Looks to be Reavers."_

Jayne stood stock still, the shock of that simple word sending shivers down his spine. He looked up quickly, seeing everyone's faces as the news hit them.

It took a second for the weight of that to settle in, but each crewmember showed it in their own way. Inara's eyes widened a fraction, her jaw tightened, and her lips pressed together. The Companion's normally casual elegance lingered, but now stood on a knife's edge. Kaylee gasped, eyes widening much more noticeably, and her hands clenched together while her breathing sharpened. Still hovering by River, the Shepherd's expression hardened into a grave set, his arm tightening around the girl. For her part, River simply closed her eyes, bit her lip, and brought her legs closer to her stomach, clenching into a ball.

Zoë didn't flinch. She must have already known.

_"Zoë, I need you up here," _Mal called over the intercom, and then it went silent.

* * *

As Zoë was climbing up onto the bridge, she could hear Mal and Wash talking. There was a heavy tension in the air, one she could all-too-well understand.

"Something of a blessing with the core offline," Wash was saying as she floated into the room. "We're very cold. Not as cold as I'd like, but we're not putting out a lot of emissions. Practically invisible."

"Invisible if they're half-asleep at the consoles," Mal replied. "Are they heading toward us?"

"They're moving on a general course that'll take them past us, within a few klicks," Wash replied, checking his instruments. "Though they're only moving at cruising speeds for those boats, not flank or intercept speed. I don't think they know we're here."

"Won't need working sensors, they get close enough," Zoë commented, drifting up beside her husband. He glanced up, one hand reaching back and grasping hers. "They get inside fifteen klicks, they just need to point a telescope at us and they'll spot us."

"What if we power down all the way?" Mal said, brow furrowed. "Make 'em think we're a derelict?"

"Might just try to rip us apart for spare parts," Zoë said, shaking her head, then reaching up to brush her floating hair out of her face. They knew the Reavers had been hurting for ships ever since the majority of the pirates had been destroyed over Mr. Universe's moon, and their cobbled-together fleets and half-working starships needed constant repair and maintenance anyway. An intact, derelict spaceship would draw them faster than Kaylee to a strawberry-eating contest.

"I think we can all agree that sitting here waiting for them is a bad idea," Wash remarked.

"No one's disagreeing on the notion," Mal said. "But we can't run away even if that was an option. Sticking here will get us spotted too."

"How many ships are there?" Zoë asked.

"Four , from what I can tell," he replied. "Two light transports, one mid, one bulk hauler. Enough to carry maybe three, four hundred."

"Oh, good," Mal said. "I thought the odds were bad." He frowned, thinking, and looked out the window. "These asteroids are mostly metallic. If we latched onto one, they wouldn't spot us. Especially that real big one over there."

"Can we maneuver?" Zoë asked, and Wash shook his head.

"One thruster firing at ten percent, main drive offline," he replied. "Not that using a thruster would do us much good." Firing the thruster would release heat, which was as good as waving a flashing sign saying they were right there.

"Maneuvering jets are pressurized gas, don't release heat," Mal added. "They still online?" Wash checked his console.

"Far as I can tell . . . yes. They're working."

"So, we can spin about," Zoë said. "They don't provide enough thrust to move us around, just rotate the ship."

"We don't have anything else that can-" Wash paused, his brow furrowing as he thought, and he started hitting some keys.

"You got an idea?" Mal asked. Wash didn't reply for a moment, and then slowly inhaled.

"I might," he whispered. "Atmo generator and internal climate control is working just fine. Yeah. Yeah, I got an idea. Pure long shot, but I've got one."

* * *

There was a plan.

Plans were the **first** casualty. _**First law**_. Mal knew that, understood _chaos theory _and **unintended consequences**. _Impossible to establish order across the entire __system_due to an inability to understand the **fundamentals** of the system. The current circumstances proved that.

The _**darkness**_ was close. **Hunger**, echoing through space. She _saw_ it. _Saw_ _**them**_.

_crimson stuck to her fingers, matted her hair, splashed over her cheeks, ran down her clothes, seeped into her mouth and over her tongue_

She shook, pulling into herself. Had to _look_ away, _look_ at someone else's **books**.

Inara was _worrisome_. Kaylee was _scared_, **bald and clear **fear, even though she knew he should be okay. Jayne was _fidgety_, had images of loaders and hammers and slides, and _recoil_ and _rifling_ and _**sight alignment**_. Book was disappearing into the book of **nonsense** and _symbols_.

_Simon was_

incomplete

That was _irrelevant. _

No, _not_ irrelevant. Correction: _lower priority_. **Death **_would come too quickly_, _too painfully for the_ incomplete _to matter_.

Fingers slid over the counter, finding purchase. A _wisp_ of memory - _they were stored here _- and she opened the drawer.

Had to take precautions. Just in case.

* * *

The infirmary had been mostly cleaned, though there were still droplets of Simon's blood floating about. The vacuum hissed quietly as Jayne went about cleaning up. He didn't know what else to do, and while he wanted to go and prep his girls for combat, he knew doing so would just get his mind locked on how bad this fight was going to be. His shoulder ached where he'd been shot last time he'd tangled with Reavers. He glanced up at the others crowding around the infirmary.

Kaylee drifted by Simon's side, floating close to him, her hands clutching one of his limp ones. Inara was on the opposite side, keeping an eye on the wounded doctor; Jayne figured her Companion training taught her enough about medicine to let her at least monitor the equipment. Behind Kaylee, River had tucked herself into a corner of the room, legs pulled up to her chest, and she stared at her brother's still form. She shivered like she was cold. The Shepherd hovered nearby, poring over his Bible, his mouth moving silently as he whispered the words.

It was all so damn quiet, and he didn't like the fact that the vacuum was making the only noise. As he moved across the room, Jayne spotted a few droplets drifting toward Inara, and twisted toward her, catching the blood. She glanced up at the noise.

"S'cuse," he muttered, grabbing the last drops and moving past her. He winced inwardly, worried that saying something might cause everyone to start talking, but the others remained silent. Jayne switched off the vacuum and started to stow it, and the quiet - especially with the engines not running - was getting unnerving.

After a few moments, the stillness and the lack of anything to do finally got the better of the mercenary, and he started for the door. As he floated across the room, there came a sudden, sharp clinking sound, and everyone's eyes rose.

In her corner of the room, a packet of syringes floated by River's face, and she was rummaging through a drawer beside where she was sitting, pulling out a clear vial of drugs.

"River?" Book asked, closing his Bible. "What are you-"

"Sleep," she whispered. Frowning, Jayne moved over beside her, and grabbed the vial she was holding. To his surprise, she let it go without a fuss. He glanced over it, and nodded.

It was a vial of morphine. Jayne glanced up and tossed the vial toward Book, who caught it. A quick glance, and he nodded.

"River's got the right idea," the Shepherd whispered. "As grim as it may be." Inara drifted closer to him, and she saw the writing on the vial. Her lips pressed together again.

"We _should_ be ready, just in case," she said, her voice tight. Jayne grunted, not welcome to the prospect, and glanced toward River again to make sure she was okay. She had pressed herself back into her corner, and shivered again, but was otherwise fine. That done, Jayne pushed off the counter and toward the door.

"Where are you going?" Book asked.

"Gettin' ready," Jayne replied. He paused, and glanced back at them. "I'll take a needle if it gets bad, but not 'fore I take a few with me."

As he pushed himself out of the room, Inara looked back toward Kaylee, who hadn't moved during the whole exchange. Silently, she drifted over to her and put an arm around the mechanic, while Book went about the grim task of filling a series of needles with the morphine overdoses.

As he worked, sliding each needle into a small rack set into one of the cabinets for holding them in zero gravity, he caught movement at the hatch. He looked up in time to see Mal hauling himself into the room, still clad in his environment suit, magboots locking him to the deck.

"Captain," Book said as Mal appeared.

"Shepherd," he replied. "How is he?"

"Stable, no change," Inara said, looking up toward him and pulling away from Kaylee. Mal looked past, noting the vial and series of needles the preacher had secured to the counter, and said nothing. Instead, he stepped inside, boots clanking as he walked along. He moved up beside the Doctor's still form, looking over his wound.

"That's not nothing," he whispered, and then looked up toward his mechanic. "Kaylee?" He reached out, grabbing her shoulder and shaking her slightly, to get past the disconnected-ness of the space suit. She looked up, pulling her eyes away from Simon, and he saw redness in them.

"Kaylee," he spoke gently. "You here?" She inhaled, sniffed slightly, and nodded.

"He's just . . not movin'," she managed, and Mal nodded. "And, I don't know if its even gonna matter, if-"

"Kaylee," Mal said, cutting her off before she could start down that road. He reached across and grabbed her with his other hand. "Kaylee, the ship is dead in the water. I need you to talk to _Serenity_ and suss out what's wrong with her, okay?"

"I . . . " she sniffed again. "I just . . . I . . . ." Mal opened his mouth to speak again, when Kaylee's fingers tightened around Simon's hand, and she shook her head. She opened her eyes again, and met Mal's gaze. "Okay. I'll . . . I'll see what she says."

Like everyone else, it seemed, all this time and all their troubles had hardened her too. There was something almost sad about that.

"Thanks," Mal said, giving her a bit of a smile. He looked up at the rest of them. "Meantime," he said, voice loud enough to get the others' attention. "Everyone's to stay out of the cargo bay. We an' Wash have got an idea on getting some concealment, and we're sealing the bay off to do it."

Inara was about to ask what he was planning when the intercom buzzed.

_"Mal?" _It was Wash. Mal stepped across the room and flicked the switch.

"Wash?" he asked. "You got somethin'?"

_"Atmo processors are pumping, but I need the bay sealed off. Also, can you send up River? If she's up to it, I mean."_

"Yeah, I can," Mal said. He turned to the girl and then stopped as he saw River uncurl herself from her corner and push off the wall. She closed her eyes and turned away from Simon's still form, and then twisted about, catching the lip of the hatch with one hand. With a surprising degree of grace and ease, she twisted around the doorway and hauled herself out of the room, legs moving like a fish through water.

"She's on her way," Mal said.

* * *

Zoë stood by her husband on the bridge as he worked the controls, adjusting the atmosphere processors. Her feet were locked down in place by a pair of magboots she'd slipped on after Mal had left. The room was getting a bit chilly as he manipulated the air flow, and had that slight metallic tang to it that came when too much was being shunted through the processor too quickly.

"You ever done this before?" she asked.

"In theory? I ran a simulation on it in flight school," he replied, shrugging.

"How did that end?"

"Fiery simulated crash," Wash said.

"Wonderful."

They heard footsteps coming up the corridor behind them, and Zoë looked back, to see Jayne lugging his way up the crew hallway, carrying a satchel full of weapons. His suit was loaded with more gear, strapped or fastened to webbing, including an improbable amount of ammunition. He was also carrying several rifles in hand, including Zoë's favorite guns.

"Got everything loaded," he said, stepping onto the bridge. "Give me some time, I can rig up a few mines on some entry points." He tossed Zoë her weapons, and she caught them: her favored longarm, two pistols, and her lever-action.

"Where do you think they'd breach?" she asked. Not that it would matter; that many Reavers would overwhelm their ammunition supplies regardless of where they entered.

"Main bay doors, both front and belly," Jayne said. "Probably try and breach the shuttles, too. Topside hatch is suicide, but these are Reavers, so . . . ."

"There's also the windows over the mess," Zoë added, and Jayne grunted. He'd evidently forgotten those.

"Bridge windows, too," Wash piped in, unconsciously rubbing his chest. Zoë nodded grimly. The ship had way too many potential entry points. Jayne popped one of the lockers and stowed a shotgun and couple of revolvers in there for Wash, though they all knew that if it came down to him having to use them, things were likely too late to make a difference.

There was more movement behind Jayne, and he turned to see River pulling herself up the crew corridor. As she neared the ladder, one of her arms shot forward, reaching toward the bridge door. The burly mercenary stepped aside as she approached, and reached out, grabbing her outstretched hand and pulling her inside.

"Good to see you," Wash said as she floated toward the chair and caught it, stopping her momentum. She twisted about in a single fluid motion, planting her feet against the ceiling and shoving off just enough to direct her down into the chair, and spun around into a sitting position.

_"Wash," _Mal's voice cut in overhead as she strapped herself in. _"Bay doors locked. Got a full pressure seal."_

"Okay, let's get this started. River, can you-"

"Pumping atmosphere into the bay," she said, her words flat and emotionless. Her fingers flicked across the switches and keys in sharp, efficient motions. "Pressure rising. Estimate . . . four minutes before we have enough pressure." Wash blinked, and then went back to his controls.

"That's a long time, way they're approaching," Zoë whispered, eyes locked on the display.

"I just need enough to get us moving," Wash said, voice tight. His fingers danced over the control stick. "And enough to slow us down."

"Anythin' else?" Jayne asked.

"Pray we don't screw this up, because we're not getting another chance."

* * *

Four minutes passed, and Mal had managed to work his way back up onto the bridge after making sure all the doors were sealed. Halfway through, a warning klaxon had started, alerting them to the wondrous dangers of overpressurization, but Wash quashed that as well as the majority of the ship's power. All that was running now in the darkness of the ship was emergency lighting and atmosphere.

"Gorram it!" Mal growled grabbing his bruised shin.

Unfortunately, the emergency lighting made it hard to see.

"Have a fun time, Cap'n?" Jayne asked sardonically as Mal clunked his way up onto the bridge, his legs smarting.

"Loads of it," Mal replied. "I think this is what pain feels like. How's the thingy in the whatsits?"

"Air pressure is still rising, but I think we're good," Wash said. "River?" The girl frowned, checking the readings, and Mal saw her eyes go unfocused for a second in the reflection of the bridge windows. He guessed she was running the math in her head.

"Yes," she said, her words still oddly flat. "Yes. We're good." The pilot nodded and grabbed the intercom.

"How long until the Reavers get to us?"

"Three minutes 'till they can spot us visually," Jayne replied, voice grim. He held Vera in one hand; his knuckles would have been white were he still not wearing his environment suit. Wash grabbed the intercom.

"Okay, kids, strap in," the pilot said, voice echoing around the ship. Mal glanced around the bridge, only to find the only chairs were already occupied, with Zoë having strapped in at the ops station.

"Where do we-" Mal began to say, but then his pilot flicked a couple of switches, and his body went tense and rigid as a stone statue. _Serenity_ began to shift, maneuvering thrusters firing. The boat rotated a few degrees, and then spun a few more, and then stopped.

"Here we go," Wash whispered, and hit another switch.

"I am a leaf on the wind."

Below, the bay airlock opened, both doors flying open at the same time in flagrant violation of regular ship safety regulations. Every crate and box in the bay shuddered, but in a rare case of prudence, the crew had strapped all the equipment and cargo down tight previously, so nothing leapt up out into the cold void of space.

However, an enormous amount of extremely cold air - enough to crush a human being into paste in ordinary circumstances - _did_ flow out of the opened doors.

Wash made sure to only open the airlock a quarter of the way; as a result, the escaping high-pressure air was pumped out of a small, tight gap. The escaping atmosphere pushed back on _Serenity_ even as it was being sucked out into space, and the sheer force of the venting air was enough to propel even a vessel as heavy as a loaded-down Firefly.

As the vessel moved, Mal was made aware of just how useful artificial gravity was, as he was shoved forward toward the front of the bridge, only saved by his magboots. Meanwhile, Wash quickly flicked a switch and turned the control stick a hairsbreadth.

"Watch how I soar."

Below, the bay doors closed, and Wash gripped the controls tightly, checking the aft cameras. Now came the hard part.

"River," he whispered, voice tight and concentrating as the Firefly floated backwards. Each twitch corrected their trajectory just a tiny bit. "When I give the signal-"

"Bay doors," she said. Hands hovering over the keys.

"Right," Wash said.

"You're forgetting something," she added as Wash twitched the controls again, rotating the Firefly a single precious degree.

"What's that?"

"Leaf."

"Oh, right," he said, and managed a strained laugh. "I'm . . . I am a leaf . . . on the wind . . . ."

In the aft camera, a huge asteroid was rising up into view. Wash's eyes were locked on it and the rangefinder.

"Reavers are holding steady," Zoë reported. Jayne opened his mouth to speak, but Mal reached up and planted a hand over his face. No need to jinx them.

They were closing to within a few hundred meters. Wash tensed up again, closed his eyes for a second, and twisted the controls a tick.

"Watch how I soar."

_Serenity's_ maneuvering thrusters fired, flipping the Firefly over to face the giant asteroid. They closed to within a hundred meters of the drifting rock.

"Riv-"

"Bay open."

For an instant, the bay doors opened again. Once more, the atmosphere was vented, this time in the opposite direction. Mal tensed up as he watched the pitted surface of the asteroid close in through the forward windows, rising up threateningly just like a certain other rock had only a short while ago.

Air burst through the slit in the bay doors. Counterthrust was applied to thrust, and with less than a dozen meters to spare, _Serenity_ coasted to a near halt.

Wash fired maneuvering thrusters again, angling _Serenity's_ belly toward the asteroid, and engaged the landing gear. The spindly legs extended as they inched toward the surface of the asteroid, and the claws bit down into the surface.

With the tiniest whisper of motion, _Serenity_ came to a dead halt, clasped tight to the massive asteroid.

"Still not out of the woods," Mal said before anyone could relax, his eyes glued on the sensor display. The relief died in a heartbeat, and everyone's eyes fell upon the sensor display. The Reavers were still out there and could still spot them.

The blob of radiation that marked the Reaver fleet continued on, and as they watched, it passed through the space they had been occupying not a few minutes ago. This close, they could turn on a telescope and see the spikes and red paint, plus the tiny, blackened shapes that the Reavers had desecrated their hulls with.

No one spoke, though Wash's fingers drummed quietly on the control stick. Out the windows, they could see the Reaver ships, just tiny black dots moving against the stars and distant nebulae and other lights of space.

Jayne glanced down to his sidearm and drew it, clicking open the chamber and looking at the rounds in the cylinder. The noise drew a glance from Mal, who just as quickly looked away. His eyes fell on the sensor again, but then he heard a faint murmur over the tinny hum of _Serenity's_ atmo processor. He glanced over to his right, and saw River.

She was staring out the window, eyes wide with horror, breathing shallow, lips curled back. He understood immediately; the Reavers were touching her even this far away.

Mal cut across the bridge, putting a gloved hand on her shoulder. She jerked at the touch, but then looked up at the captain, who pumped himself full of as much confidence as he could, reminding her that he was there for her if things got out of hand. After a few seconds, the horror stretching across her face began to fade, or at least simmer back a bit.

He didn't have to say anything. Simply reminding her he was there seemed to calm River down, or at least helped block out the . . . _darkness_ she was picking up from the Reavers.

A few more minutes passed, and they watched the Reavers continue along, cutting through space. Wash monitored their approach vector, plotting their course in his head, and after a few minutes he spoke up.

"They're not changing course," he breathed. Outside, the vessels continued along until they were out of sight. There was a long moment of silence, and then Wash practically melted in his seat.

"They're moving on." Relief flowed around the bridge, a palpable sensation that caressed everyone. Zoë unstrapped herself and crossed the room, hugging her husband, and Jayne started laughing in relief. Even River seemed to relax a bit, managing a smile for a heartbeat.

"Wash," Mal said, managing something resembling a grin of his own. "That was some amazing flying. Amazing from both of you."

"Does this mean we get a raise?" the pilot asked, a little giddy, while River's only response was to curl her legs up once more and stare away.

"Nah," Mal said. "I'm too stingy for that. Ya'll are gonna have to settle for a vacation."

"Oh, we'll manage," Zoe said, feigning disappointment.

"Okay, now that's squared away," Mal said, "We need to get the ship fixed up, head back to civilization and get the Doc patched up properly. Should be able to last a few weeks out this far, so-"

"No."

The whole bridge looked over to River, whose face had shifted back to that blank, distant look she'd had ever since Simon had been patched up.

"Huh?" Wash asked.

"No time," she said, her voice the same flat and toneless one that she'd been speaking in. She curled up more tightly into a ball, one hand rising to her chest in the same spot where Simon had been wounded. "Fourteen hours."

"What are you talking about?" Mal said, stepping back closer to her. There was a moment's pause, and then he caught a glint of something floating in front of her face: light reflecting off water. A few more seconds passed before she was able to speak, her voice a faint squeak.

"He's dying."

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes_**: Yeah, this chapter took me a while, mostly because getting the dialogue done correctly and maintaining tension was difficult. This has definitely been one of the hardest chapters for me to write thus far. I'm hoping this won't become a trend where the even-numbered arcs end up taking forever to write while the odd-numbered ones are blisteringly easy. Then again, I've always had trouble writing chapters that involve the use of physics.

Fortunately, the next few chapters are where the action starts picking up. I'm not going to spoil anything, but those of you wanting conflict within the happy little family of loonies that are our beloved crew might be satisfied.

Until next chapter....


	32. Chapter Three: Conflict

_**Chapter Three: Conflict**_

Inara sat in the quiet of the infirmary, watching over the young doctor. She rarely got to see him at peace like this, though the times when he was with Kaylee or River were close approximations. So much weight rested on him for so long that he always seemed a decade older when he was awake. This close, and this still, he seemed like the child he really was, barely a few years out of his teens.

He was fortunate. He still had his whole life ahead of him.

She heard movement at the hatch, the _step-clank _of working magboots, and looked up to see a flood of figures moving into the room. Mal rushed in, followed by Zoe, and at the rear, trailing like a lost puppy, was River, with Jayne hovering behind her.

"Inara, any change?" Mal asked as soon as he came into the room, startling her with his speed and directness.

"No, none," she replied. "What's wrong? The Reavers are gone, aren't they?"

'They are," Zoe replied, nodding. "Where's Kaylee?"

"She went to check on the engines," Book replied. "See why we're dead in the water, why?"

"Jayne," Mal called, stepping beside Simon and grabbing the medical scanner. "Go help her, _dong ma?"_

"On it, Cap'n," he said, clanking away. Mal fired up the medical scanner and ran it over Simon's wound.

"What's going on?" Inara asked, and Mal exhaled, looking at the monitor.

"Hopefully, nothing," he whispered, voice tight. "Zoe?"

"Move a few inches lower. There was some tearing. Maybe we - stop. There."

On the monitor, they saw a crude visual of Simon's internals, focusing on the wound in his lung. Most of the image showed pink tissue and the blank white of the biofoam Zoe had pumped into his chest, but as Mal slowly turned the scanner, something else appeared: bright red. A tiny amount, but it was there.

"_Tsao gao. _She's right."

"Internal bleeding," Zoe said, her words tight. "I thought I got it all."

"Must have been deeper than we thought," Mal said. "Look at the blood. Its leaking for certain."

"He's bleeding into his lungs?" Book asked, and Zoe nodded, and glanced to River, still hovering outside, her pained expression scrunching up her face.

"River reckons Simon's got fourteen hours before the internal bleeding kills him."

* * *

The engine room was lit by a few sodium lamp packs that had been scattered about, along with emergency lighting. Kaylee had one pack's strap fixed to her forehead, and was poking around in a ceiling compartment overhead. She had a short tether connecting herself to another of the ceiling panels, and her arms were elbow deep into something.

"Kaylee?" Jayne asked, moving into the room. "You found somethin'?"

"Thinkin' I might," she replied, surprising the mercenary as he clomped into the chamber. Her arms pulled out, and with them came a flat piece of metal with what looked like capacitors attached to it.

"What's that?" he asked, catching it. Even with his limited expertise, Jayne recognized that it was burnt and damaged.

"Drive discharge capacitor," she mumbled, disconnecting herself from the ceiling. "Older'n my hair length, the looks of it." Jayne frowned. Even _he_ knew what that did. The engine built up excess static electricity as it ran, especially when it ran at full burn. That could be fed back into the ship's power supply in an emergency, but usually it was just captured in capacitors and discharged whenever they passed through a planet's atmosphere.

"Looks like it got old, blew out, released into the power system, overloaded half our equipment," Kaylee added. "Since we've been away from a world for a bit, built up a lot of excess charge."

Jayne looked back up, recognizing the glum tone she was speaking in, and he knew she was likely blaming herself for that.

"Not your fault Mal's a dumb _hun dan_," he said. "Shoulda hit a black rock or something to lose the charge." She shrugged.

"Shoulda been listenin' to her, instead of letting things wear out," she muttered, and Jayne grunted. Not much he knew to say to comfort the mechanic, so he gave up on that angle. Instead, he looked around the engine room.

"Any way we can get it back to working normal-like?"

"Well," Kaylee mused, "just guessin' by the number of systems we lost, a good chunk of _Serenity's_ wiring got damaged in the blowout, but I'm pretty sure I can fix it. Gimme some time and I can jury-rig engine controls, get the thrusters working again."

"Main engine?"

"Longer," she mumbled, drifting around her baby's still heart. "It'll be days before I can get that fixed up to working again, and we'll probably have to stop at a dock for major repairs."

"Can you get the thrusters workin' quick?" Jayne asked, knowing that was the important question.

"Gimme maybe five to ten hours to rewire everything," she said, shrugging, and looked back up to Jayne. "What?"

Jayne belatedly realized he's adopted one of his "oh, shit" expressions. Kaylee stared back, not understanding why he was looking like that.

"Something wrong?"

"No, nothin'," he replied quickly. "Just, uh, gotta tell Mal we'll be stuck here a bit." He nodded toward the engine. "Best get, uh, back to work?"

"Yeah," she replied, nodding and a whisper of cheer touching her face again that hurt Jayne royally to see. "Get back on it, I guess."

Jayne spun and clomped out of the engine room fast as he could.

Not good. Not good _at all_.

* * *

_"Mal, need you up here now."_

Things on _Serenity_ were informal, but even so a man didn't usually give orders to Malcolm Reynolds. The sole exception was Wash, and only when he used _that _tone, the one that said "Do what I say right now unless you want this seven meter piece of _Serenity_ lanced up your _pi gu_, sir."

Mal immediately broke away, leaving Simon to Zoe and Inara, and started outside as fast as his magboots would take him. He'd gotten up the rear stairs and was headed into the mess when he heard footsteps behind him, and glanced over his shoulder. Jayne clomped in step beside Mal, his face showing not a little bit of agitation.

"Mal, we gotta issue here," he said, his voice a bit quiet. The captain noted he was checking over his shoulder too, looking back toward the engine room.

"What's up?" Mal asked as they moved into the mess, where he paused.

"Kaylee's sayin' the discharge overloaded, blew out the ship's wiring," he explained quickly. "Says she can fix it, but it'll take five to ten hours, minimum."

Mal exhaled. That didn't bode well for Simon, he realized, a cold churning swirling about in his gut.

"How long 'till thrusters get back online?"

"That _was _what she said for thrusters," Jayne clarified, and Mal mumbled a curse under his breath.

"I'll check with Wash on what he needs. Meantime, you help her out any way you can. Gotta get this boat flyin' quick, or Doc's gonna be in a bad way."

"Right, Cap'n," he replied with a nod, and hurried back up the corridor. Mal moved off in the opposite direction, and stomped up onto the bridge as fast as his boots let him.

"What's happening? The Reavers come back?" he asked, hoping against hope that wasn't the case.

"No, but almost as bad," Wash replied. He slid aside as Mal leaned over his shoulder, looking at the display. He stared for several long seconds.

"You gotta be joking," he hissed.

"The sensors are devoid of a sense of humor, Captain," Wash reminded him.

"Yeah, but . . . of all the gorram people in this neck of the system, we get . . . ."

He ran a hand over his face, and glared at the monitor, which showed the Alliance frigate _Hemmingway_, cruising toward the asteroid field at flank speed, and would be passing them in the next hour, with a scanner suite that put the Reavers' cobbled-together junkpiles to shame.

"Go full power down again," Mal hissed, and grabbed the intercom. "Zoe, I need you to the bridge." He flicked a switch. "Kaylee, go full power down."

_"Cap'n?" _she asked.

"Do it quick, we've got an Alliance frigate hereabouts, last thing we need is them picking up emissions of any kind."

She didn't respond, but the ship darkened very quickly a few seconds later. After a couple of minutes, Zoe made her way up onto the bridge.

"What's this about an Alliance ship?" she asked, to which Mal nodded.

"Alliance frigate, blasting every color of identifier signal," Wash said, eyes on the scopes.

"Long as we stay out of sight we should be good," Mal murmured.

"What do we do if they spot us?" Zoe asked.

"Pray hard they don't," Mal replied, and she understood. In this state, they had no way to run or escape; all they could do was take cover and hope the frigate didn't catch sight of them.

"Do we have any idea how long until we're spaceworthy?" she asked, and Mal shook his head, face grim.

"Jayne said Kaylee's best estimate is five hours, but that's more optimism than I care for," he said. "And that's just thrusters, not counting the main engine."

"Anywhere in range we can get to in that time?" Zoe asked, and Wash tapped a few keys on his console, bringing up a system map.

"There's a few stations in thruster range, but they're all at least six hours out," he mused. "We could hit Greenleaf inside of twenty-one."

"Doc'll be dead seven hours by then," Mal mused. "Can we try patching him up, maybe apply some more biofoam?"

"We'd have to remove the current layer, as its already hardened," Zoe said, frowning. She shook her head, hair billowing about in the zero gravity. "Remove what's already in there and pump more bandage into his body to see if we can plug the hole we missed the first time. That's complicated work. I can give it a shot . . . ."

Mal heard the "but" in her tone, and understood. She wasn't rated for that kind of delicate surgery. Of all the people on the ship who had to be injured . . . .

"That's funny," Wash piped in. "Looks like that frigate is cruising along the same route the Reavers took."

"It is?" Mal asked, leaning over his shoulder. Wash gestured to the navigational plot.

"Almost exact. Like its trailing them."

"Pirate hunters," Zoe said, and Mal nodded. The Alliance had been stepping up their anti-pirate activities after Miranda, now that everyone knew the Reavers were real. That also meant that the frigate could be hunting the asteroid belt for any squatters, too. All the more reason to hide away.

That was bad. Even if Kaylee got the engines fixed in time, they would have an Alliance warship in spitting distance when the engines came back online, who would definitely try to pick them up and inspect them if they took off. The last thing they needed right now was an Alliance ship poking through _Serenity_, especially with Simon and River on board.

"_Lao-tien boo_," Mal muttered.

* * *

Kaylee muttered under her breath as she looked over the diagnostic datapad, one of the few sources of illumination in the entire engine room. On the screen, there was a schematic of _Serenity_, with a delicate mishmash of lines representing main power conduits. Sections of the wiring glowed blue or red, depending on their status, and a depressing amount were glaring angrily at her.

The good news was that the wiring was mostly out in nonessential systems, internal ship lights being top among them. The problem was that the remaining chunks of the ship that were out were essential, including their thrusters and main drive, plus artificial gravity. As she zoomed in, checking the wiring of individual segments of her baby, the problem became more pronounced; only a few bits and pieces of wiring were disabled in any one area, but it was gonna be the devil's own to get at those parts and fix them. They would definitely need to hit a repair station to get the boat in original working order, which Mal was going to mad about. They had already gone through most of the money they'd gotten off looting Ott's ship, and this was going to burn the rest.

"_Fei-oo," _she muttered, noticing one patch of damaged gear. "We're gonna have to suit up to reach this one."

"That's peachy," Jayne muttered. Kaylee shrugged, saving the data on her datapad - one of the nifty items she'd convinced Mal to blow Ott's money on - and unplugged it from a slot in the wall. She pushed off, engaging her magboots as she touched down, and could hear a clatter coming up the access corridor.

"What's that all about?" she asked, looking down the passage, in time to hear Mal dash his head on something floating about. He loosed a colorful curse, and through the gloom, they could see Zoe approaching.

"Captain's calling a meet down by the infirmary," she yelled, and hurried down the steps.

"What's this about?" Kaylee called back, but she was already down the stairs. The mechanic looked to Jayne. "You got any idea what this is about?" she asked, and he shrugged.

"No ruttin' clue," he replied quickly, and that made her frown in confusion. Jayne sounded like he did know what was happening, and that made Kaylee a wee bit nervous, if he was hiding something.

"Let's get after 'em," she added, grabbing the loose ceiling panel. "Gimme a sec to fasten this, make sure it doesn't mash Mal's head like everythin' else around here." Jayne grunted and headed down the corridor, and after a few moments Kaylee followed.

As she reached the lower deck an stepped out into the common room outside the infirmary, she saw the rest of the crew had beaten her to the punch. Book and Inara were emerging from the infirmary, Wash and Zoe were hovered to one side, Jayne floated by the stairs looking awful uncomfortable, and Mal was standing by the infirmary, arms crossed in his classic serious business pose.

Everyone looked awful grim, she realized, and it took a few seconds for Kaylee to notice that River was nowhere to be seen. She glanced through the windows into the infirmary, and saw the girl drifting by Simon's unconscious body.

That sent a sudden tremor of fear through Kaylee. She was about to ask about Simon, but Mal spoke up first, not wasting any time.

"Okay, everyone's here," he said. "Gotta make this quick, don't want anyone not looking at the controls. Few minutes back, we picked up an Alliance frigate on the same course as those Reaver ships we dodged about an hour ago. Looks like they're tailing 'em, probably trying to find if they've got a dock or something." Jayne muttered under his breath, and the grave looks on the others' faces darkened considerably. The captain looked to her.

"Kaylee, how far are you on gettin' our engines running again?" Mal asked. She shrugged.

"'Bout five to ten hours, I suppose," she said. "Lotta wiring is damaged by the overload, and I'll have to suit up to fix the aft interchangers. That'll take a bit." She saw the dark look on Mal's face in response to that, and Shepherd Book's head lowered. She saw Inara raise one hand to her chin, and Zoe closed her eyes. Those little tics of theirs sent another shiver of fear through the mechanic.

"What's wrong?" she asked, and she could hear the tremble in her voice. Mal looked up, eyes flicking to Zoe and Book, and then he inhaled slowly.

"River thought something was amiss," he said, voice quiet. "We double-checked, and Doc's bleeding out." At Kaylee's shocked and confused look, he clarified.

"Simon's dying. River's estimate is he's got thirteen, maybe fourteen hours before the bleeding kills him."

Kaylee blinked, and suddenly understood what it felt like to be punched in the gut. She took a step back, shaking her head, not believing what she was hearing.

"Dying?" she echoed. "No. No, no, that's not . . . . how can he be . . . ." Her hands rose to her mouth, and she could feel tears welling up in her eyes. An instant later, she felt Inara's arms around her, once again hugging her close.

"Things aren't looking good right now," Mal said after a moment, looking to the rest of the crew. "Gotta get the engine working soon."

Kaylee was listening best she could with the sudden turmoil of shock and disbelief running through her, and she spoke up.

"That'll take a long ways," she managed, fighting back tears. "Lots of . . . lots of things needin' to be fixed to get her engine runnin' again."

"Then we need to get to it," Mal said. He looked to Wash, the Shepherd, and Zoe. "We're all gonna have to pitch in to get _Serenity'_s heart beating." He stepped across the room to Kaylee, and put his arm on her shoulder.

"Gonna need your help, Kaylee," he added, and she looked up, meeting his eyes. She remembered the last time the ship's core went on the fritz, and how he'd come into the chilled engine room, bringing a warmth and understanding she'd needed.

"I can . . ." she glanced up into the infirmary, seeing Simon laying there, still and silent, and closed her eyes. She inhaled sharply, trying to steady herself.

They needed her. Simon needed her. She'd been flying with them too long, seen too many scrapes as bad as this to break down now.

"I can do it, Cap'n," she replied, opening her eyes. Mal nodded, and managed a slight smile.

"Okay," he said. "You tell us what to fix, we'll bash it proper."

Kaylee nodded, still struggling to steady herself, and managed another look at the young doctor's body. After a moment, she gently pulled free from Inara's touch, and then held up her datapad.

"We'll need to start out here. Aft interchangers are gonna take the longest to fix because we'll be working zero gee. Also, we've got the port internal interchangers here and here, plasma feed here, and all the discharge capacitors need to be switched out or taken off . . . ."

_We'll get you fixed, _Serenity_. Gotta do this for Simon._

* * *

An hour later, Mal ran a hand over his brow, wiping away a patch of sweat kneading on his skin, and then plunged both hands back into the wall of the engine room. He looked into the mishmash of wires on the other side, and began separating and pulling them apart. Every few seconds he'd glance at the diagram Kaylee had given him.

A flash of sparks came from the opposite side of the room, and Mal looked up, to see Book silhouetted against the light as he worked some tool or another inside another part of the engine room.

"Okay, preacher?" Mal asked, and he nodded, eyes hidden behind glare shades.

"Power arc," he replied. "Looks like I've almost got this section repaired, if that's the case."

A few moments' silence followed that, as Mal separated two burnt-out wires, replaced them, and reconnected the power to his section. The electronics lit up, glowed, and hummed as they should . . . and then died a heartbeat afterward. He snarled and went back to work.

"You didn't tell her, did you?" Book asked suddenly.

"'Bout what?"

"Even if we get the thrusters back online, we've got no planets or stations nearby that can service Simon."

Mal was silent on that matter for a few moments, and then glanced back toward Book.

"She's got enough troubles as it is without me breaking it to her like this," he finally said.

"Are you just writing him off, then?"

Mal rose, looking directly at Book, who was staring at him through those glare shades, hiding his eyes. After a second, the Shepherd raised the goggle to his forehead, meeting Mal's gaze on even terms.

"You and I both know it would take the main engine to get us to a medical facility in time to save him," Book said. "And it would take a miracle to get the main engine working now."

"Well, shouldn't you be asking the fluffy Lord for a bit of divine grace, then?" Mal asked, jaw set tightly.

"I am," Book replied. "Every second I work here, I am." Mal gave a quick, curt nod.

"I'm not holding out hope God's going to save us," he said. "So I'm going to do my damndest to get this thing working. Have to beat it with my sledgehammer, I will. I'm not writing him off."

"Our chances are slim, though," Book said. "We should be looking at the reality of the situation."

"Funny thing, Shepherd," Mal said. "I'm usually the one looking at the reality here."

"Then you should listen to me," Book said, matching Mal's look. "We're not likely to get the engine fixed in time. We should be looking at other options."

"Other options?" Mal let out a single laugh at the absurdity of that. "There _are_ no other options. There's no one out here to help us 'cept the Reavers, who I ain't exactly expecting charity from, and the Alliance, who ain't much better. No one's gonna save us 'cept ourselves."

Book stared back at Mal for a long while, and then Mal suddenly realized what he meant.

"No." He pointed a finger at Book to emphasize. "_No_. That worked once, its not going to work again."

"Are you certain?" Book asked, and Mal looked at him as if he'd sprouted wings and a harp.

"Shepherd, are you insane?" he asked. "Doc's on the Alliance's most wanted. We can't take him on that ship for medical help, they'll know who he is in an instant."

Book stared back at him, and though Mal honestly believed his implicit suggestion was far off the loony end, there was something else there in his eyes. As if he knew something Mal didn't.

"I think that I can get him on the ship without any trouble."

"What?" Mal asked, arching an eyebrow. "You think your fancy ident-card can pull that off?"

"Its worth a shot, to save his life," Book said, and Mal shook his head.

"Shepherd, we're wasting time," he said, turning back toward the panel. "We're not calling the Alliance for help, period. So best start working on your miracles and the engine."

Mal listened as he went back to work, and finally heard the reassuring sound of Book's tool starting up again, and saw the arcs of sparking electricity.

* * *

He heard the hiss of escaping atmosphere, followed by the rapid click of a seal locking in place. Jayne glanced over to her as she finished fixing her helmet, and then bent down to grab a tool box.

"Hold up, let me check it," he said, voice echoing out of his suit's speaker, and his fingers moved across the back of Kaylee's helmet, double-checking her seals.

"Looks good," he finally said, and fought back the urge to keep checking her gear.

Not three hours ago she'd nearly been sent off into the Black, to die gasping as her oxygen ran out. And here she was, ready to go storming out into vacuum again. Jayne had a hard time reconciling the bubbly, cheerful girl with the driven person who scooped up her toolbox and stepped into the airlock without another word.

"Gotta make this quick," he heard her say as the doors slammed shut behind them, and he nodded.

"Gotcha." He heard the airlock hiss, and air was sucked out into the processors. A few seconds later, the door began to open. Kaylee started off right away, clomping out into the emptiness and moving down the hull.

They had to stab the Doc more often, Jayne decided. He liked her more when she was like this.

* * *

Ten hours remained, at best guess.

Inara had relatively little technical knowledge, but she knew enough about medicine that she would be the logical choice to watch over Simon while the others went about their work. The doctor was still unconscious, but she suspected the medicines would wear off in a couple of hours and he would come to. Best to have someone tending to him in that case.

Aside from Inara, the only person not doing any work on the ship was River. She had found a spot by her brother and was refusing to leave his side; no one, not even Mal, had the heart to pull her away, and they suspected she was in no proper state of mind to help repair the ship anyway.

Inara alternated her gaze between the monitors and the doctor's sleeping form. Privately, she wondered if they really _could_ get the ship fixed in time. They would, if Kaylee had anything to say about it, having stormed out the airlock in a pressure suit with a look that said she would tear the entire vessel apart if that was what it took to get him to safety.

But Inara understood that determination wasn't enough in some cases. As she looked over Simon's still form, she wondered about her own mortality. He seemed so peaceful, for one so close to death; the only noticeable difference was a slight lightening of his already-pale skin.

Would that be how she would look, when the time came?

There was a rustle on the opposite side of the bed, and she looked up to River. From somewhere, the girl had managed to get her hands on sheet paper and pencil, and was writing something on it. Her eyes were open and unfocused, only flicking back and forth every few seconds as the pencil worked.

The Companion recognized what River was doing. That was one of the expressions she adopted when she was drawing during their periodic therapy sessions. Sometimes she would seem more focused, but when she drew her more abstract images, she would become distant and unresponsive.

Why she was drawing at a time like this, Inara didn't understand. Maybe that was just her way of dealing with the grief and fear, or maybe she was deliberately shutting it out?

Curious, Inara drifted around the bed, trying to get a look at what River was drawing. As she came around the edge, catching sight of what looked like a face and a line of Mandarin letters, River suddenly looked up, like a deer caught in headlights. She tore the paper off the pad with startling violence, ball it up, and hurled it across the room toward the wastebasket.

"River?" Inara asked, confused at the unexpected reaction, and the girl turned away, hiding the paper pad from view.

The Companion came to a halt, and nodded, understanding. Whatever River was writing or drawing, it was private. Probably something only Simon would understand, or simply something she didn't want to say to anyone. Inara felt a little flicker of guilt for trying to look into a private place without asking, and floated back to the opposite side of Simon, and resumed checking his vitals.

A long while passed, and River began to resume drawing, this time her expression much more focused and certain. No change occurred in Simon's condition, save for the steady loss of blood in his lungs that they were powerless to patch up in these conditions.

Distantly, they heard the outer airlock slide shut in the cargo bay, and a few moments later, Kaylee and Jayne moved past the infirmary. Jayne called up to Kaylee as she clattered up the stairs, and then poked his head inside the room.

"Still the same?" he asked, and Inara nodded. He sighed through his nose and clomped into the infirmary to get a better look. Jayne looked at the women for a couple of moments.

"'Nara, you look like you need something to eat," he said, surprising her.

"I'm fine," she replied. "besides, someone needs to keep a watch on them."

"I can watch 'em while you get somethin'," Jayne said, surprising Inara twice in a matter of seconds. Her expression must have clearly shown, because he kept speaking. "Hey, you're no good to them if you're starving. Go on, I'll keep an eye on 'em."

"Do you even know how half the machines in here work?" she asked, and he shrugged.

"I'll yell real loud if I hear ominous beeping, okay?" he said, and despite the situation, she couldn't help but let out a laugh.

"Okay," she said, relenting. "Just don't break anything?"

"What do I look like, an blind ape?" he asked, and she floated past him and out of the room.

As Inara left, Jayne settled down into the spot she'd been occupying. He frowned as he looked over the Doc's unconscious form. Last time he'd been in shape like this had been on Mr. Universe's moon, but he'd only been shot in the gut. Round had missed his vitals, for the most part, and he hadn't been in danger of bleeding out. Now . . . .

Reminded him of how mortal he was. The itch to move started up, crawling down the back of his spine.

"The hell you doin'?" Jayne asked, looking at River to take his mind off her brother. She glanced up at him, over the edge of the paper, and her brown eyes narrowed.

"Drawing," she said, voice flat, and went back to work. He scowled and rose, clomping around beside her. He half-expected the crazy girl to recoil or hide the paper like a _gorram_ kid, but instead she simply looked up as he stomped around beside her. He glanced down at the paper, and saw a portrait of the Doc, his superior, smug grin plastered across his face.

"That ain't bad," Jayne said. River could draw better than decently. "Do mine sometime?"

"Not now," she said, her voice just a little squeak, and he grunted, understanding. If it was one of his brothers or sisters on the bed, he wouldn't be in the mood for artistic nonsense either.

"Drawin' it to remember, right?" he asked, and she nodded. He could understand that too.

"He won't . . . ." she started, but then halted mid-sentence. Jayne grunted again.

"If he don't make it," he asked, "You gonna be all right?"

She was silent for a moment, and released the pad. Her arms rose up to her shoulders, rubbing her biceps, and he saw the surgical scars running down both her arms. She shuddered slightly.

"Hey." He reached down, grabbing her shoulders with gloved hands. She looked up, eyes distant and faintly glazed, as if she wasn't completely in the here and now. "Hey, girl."

She blinked, and her eyes focused, meeting his.

"You're attached to him," he said, and she nodded. "I got brothers and sisters I'm strong with too, so I got what angle you're at, so you need to listen." He looked down toward Simon, and then back to her.

"One day, he won't be there. You gotta be ready for it, you understand?"

Of course she did. He'd personally seen her run headlong at a bunch of Reavers with nothing but her bare hands. But there was more to it than that.

"Can't spend your whole life just lying around, reacting to everything. You gotta make choices. You gotta make decisions. You've gotta take care of yourself. Can't guarantee we'll all be around. I know we were inches from losing Wash and the Shepherd a while back, and . . . and _hell_. You and I both went through bad shit.

"If your brother don't make it," he continued, "you gotta handle yourself. And hell, even if he _does_, you need to handle yourself. Grow up, be your own person, and no one else's. _Dong ma_?"

She nodded, and he could tell by the look in her eyes that she understood. He gave her one of his rare honest smiles, and stepped back. He reached up, grabbing the pad, and handed it back to her.

"Good."

As she took it, he could hear distant noises, up above. They echoed down the staircase from the upper levels, and that set off warning bells in his head.

"Stay here," he whispered, and moved off.

* * *

Mal moved up the darkened corridor, checking with Kaylee as she passed him in full kit. She hadn't bothered taking her helmet off until he pointed it out, and doffed it.

"Aft interwhatsits working now?" he asked, and she nodded.

"Yeah, but I need to check the gee-line in the engine."

"I think Book's working that now," he said, pointing back the way he'd come, and she moved past him, in the closest approximation one could get to a charge in magboots. It had been a long time since he'd seen that much fire in her, but Mal wished it was under better circumstances.

He made his way inside the mess, partially to check on Zoe and Wash's progress up in the bridge, and partially to get a quick drink for his parched mouth.

Book's words stung him, and refused to go away. He wasn't writing Simon off, but he did recognize the futility of everything they were doing. And the idea of going to the Alliance . . . .

He'd done it once, but only without Simon and River aboard, and had only managed to save Book with his odd ident-card. This case was far different. He knew how the Alliance worked, and knew that the moment they boarded that ship Simon would be scanned and they would be arrested. He _knew_ no ident-card could get one past that level of paranoia.

And yet, part of him _wanted_ to do it. The part of him that had hauled Simon and River out of that loony fundamentalist town, the part of him that had gone to such lengths to save the Shepherd, the part of him that had charged off to Miranda and back to change history.

Mal stood there still and silent, cup of caffeine in hand, torn between his conscience and his responsibilities. Or, perhaps it would be better to say, his conscience and his _conscience_.

"Mal?"

The captain looked up, to see Inara floating across the room toward him, a worried look on her flawless features.

"Shouldn't you be watching the Doc?" he asked.

"Jayne offered to look over him while I got something to eat," she said.

"You left Jayne alone with the doctor?" Mal asked, his tone telling her what he thought of that nightmare scenario.

"River is with him," she replied.

"Ah. Nothing to scare Jayne more, I guess," he said. He managed a sip.

"What's wrong?"

"Hm?"

"Your face is scrunched up. You're thinking about something."

"This mess is all," Mal lied, and took another quick drink. "Need to get back to work. Simon don't have much time."

"Something more than _that_," she said, and her tone told him that she knew she was right. He paused, considering what to tell her, and exhaled.

"Shepherd Book had a stupid notion," he said. "Try to pull that same trick he pulled with his 'dentity card on that Alliance frigate last year to get Simon treated."

"That _could_ work," she said, nodding, a flicker of brightness in her eyes, but he shook his head.

"Simon's wanted," he reminded her. "No card's gonna get him past their scanners, not 'less the Shepherd's secretly a senator or admiral, and I don't think even he has that kind of pull. And they catch Simon, that's it for all of us."

Inara was silent, and he knew she was running through the whole situation in her mind. She looked away slowly, lips pressed together, and Mal was about to speak some more, reassuring her he would do whatever it took to save the Doc.

"So, that's it then?"

They both looked to the back of the mess, where Book was floating, his face distinctly neutral.

"Yeah, that's it," Mal replied, nodding. "I've thought about it hard, and I haven't changed my mind on it."

"Mind on what?"

Wash floated into the room, followed by Zoe. The pilot glanced around, seeing the myriad assortment of grim expressions scattered around the dining room.

"Nothing particular," Mal said quickly, not wanting to draw them into an argument they didn't have time for.

"It didn't sound like nothing," Wash said, and Zoe put a hand on his shoulder, a subtle warning gesture.

"Perhaps we should let the rest of the crew weigh in their opinions on this," Book added, raising his eyebrows.

"My ship isn't the rutting town hall," Mal replied, voice rising. "I've made my choice clear, no matter how much I like it or not."

"What choice?" Wash asked. Mal turned to glare at him, but Book cut in.

"There's an alternative to saving Simon," he said, and Mal spun back toward Book, glaring laser beams. Too late, though.

"What kind of alternative?" Zoe asked, stepping into the room and moving between her husband and Mal.

"Yeah?" Wash asked, pushing off the doorway. "We got a better chance of helping him than this, we should take it."

"We don't have a better chance, because the Shepherd's idea is suicide," Mal barked in his commanding captain tone.

"Book believes his ID card can get Simon access to the hospital on the Alliance ship," Inara said suddenly, and Mal whipped around toward her. He felt like an anti-air battery trying to track a swarm of skimmers.

"What?" Wash said, jaw dropping. "You . . . really think you can?"

"Yes," Book replied, nodding.

"Simon sets foot on that boat he'll get tagged," Zoe pointed out.

"Exactly what I was-" Mal began.

"No, he won't," Book said, shaking his head.

"What, does your magic ident-card turn off sensors, too?" Mal asked, splitting him with his gaze. It wasn't quite so effective when he had to move it between targets so rapidly.

"Alliance troops have a particular mindset," Book explained. "Brought about by their military indoctrination. All they need is the proper authority, backed up by the proper documentation, and one can make them do whatever one wants."

There was a long moment of silence in the bay. Book hadn't said anything outright, but he had just dropped a major bombshell on them.

"Can you?" Wash asked, his voice hopeful.

"He can't," Mal said, firm and resolute. "More important, he _won't_."

"What's goin' on?" Kaylee called, walking up the maintenance corridor. A couple of seconds later, Jayne rumbled into the room as well.

"Heard yellin' downstairs," he said. "Somethin' wrong?"

Mal opened his mouth to speak, but Book was faster.

"Alternate means of saving Simon," he said, before the Captain could get in another word.

"Like what?" Kaylee asked, a spark of hope brightening her face, and Mal found the prospect of dashing that look in her eyes to be horribly painful.

"Shepherd's got a crazy notion he can get the Alliance to patch up Simon," Mal said, stepping forward around the table in the middle of the room.

"Can you?" she asked, spinning toward the Shepherd, hope spreading across her features.

"I believe I-"

"_No_, he _can't_," Mal snarled, the force in his words catching everyone's attention. Six sets of eyes locked on him.

"We bring Simon onto an Alliance ship, we're all done for," Mal said. "I'm not going to risk that. I ain't throwing away all of us."

"I agree," Zoe said, and Mal nodded his appreciation.

"Baby, you can't be . . . ." Wash said, grabbing her shoulder.

"Mal, you can't be serious," Inara said. "If there's a _chance_, none of use would hesitate to-"

"We _can_ do this," Book was adding, as much to Kaylee as the others, trying to marshal support.

"Hey, this ain't a proper idea, I think," Jayne was saying.

"If you think there's a chance, maybe-" Kaylee murmured.

"Can't we just-" Wash spoke.

_"BIZUI!"_

The sound of a gun cocking filled the mess hall, and six voices went silent. Mal slowly turned, and eased the hammer down on his pistol, sliding it back into its holster.

The air was still and heavy, and the crew stared back as he met their eyes.

"This is how it is," Mal said, voice low and quiet. "Doc risked everything. He was willing to give his life to keep his sister safe from harm, and he's not the kind to want us risking that to save his own, let alone the lives of the rest of us." He turned to look directly at Book, and the air became charged as their gazes locked.

"Eight lives for one," he said, his voice low and dark. "Its that simple." He turned and stared at the rest of them. "Only hope he's got now is that engine. Any of you don't to try saving the Doc, that's your business, but the only hope he's got is if we get the main engine working again."

He didn't tell them how much it hurt to say that, knowing that doing so would likely condemn Simon. He trusted Kaylee's skills, and she was as determined as ever to save the doctor, but he knew her chances of getting the engine working were slim.

But more importantly, he knew, deep down, that everyone on the ship - save Jayne, maybe - would _gladly_ risk their lives to try and save Simon.

"Get to work."

That was why he couldn't let any of them do it.

It was one of the most painful decisions he'd ever made, but he didn't really have any choice. Barring Kaylee managing a miracle with the engines, Simon was going to die. The Shepherd's plan was too risky. There were no other ways around it that would keep the greater whole of his crew safe.

So why did that voice in his head tell him he was betraying them all?

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** Gah, finally. This chapter was a pain to write, mostly because it was entirely dialogue, and because I had to redo it multiple times. Internal conflict was a key issue I wanted to hit on this part of the story, and Mal's struggle with his own conscience and his responsibilities to his crew are the real meat of this part of the story - though of course, we can expect a lot more action later on. Things between the crew are going to be come _very_ strained later on.

That said, glad I'm done with it, so we can get to the real action of this chapter. Things will heat up later on in this arc, trust me.

Until next chapter . . . .


	33. Chapter Four: Heartbeat

_**Chapter Four: Heartbeat**_

Seven hours were left, give or take.

Mal looked over the image on the scanner, and even with his limited understanding of medicine, he recognized the blood pooling inside Simon's lungs from the miniscule wounds inside his body.

The doctor was conscious now, but pale, and his dark eyes were locked on the image.

"Academically," he said, his voice weak, "I recognize just how bad this is. But its so . . . ."

"A little nothing," Mal agreed. But a little nothing like that was all it took to kill a man.

"No pain," he whispered. "Breathing is sluggish in this lung, but otherwise, there's nothing at all to tell me I'm dying."

Aside from Mal, Inara was hovering beside him, and River had nestled herself in the corner of the lab again, having left Simon's side the moment Mal came into the room. It was like she was trying to avoid him, and she was focused wholly on the pad of paper in front of her.

"Knew a few guys who were hit by shrapnel on Hera, back before the big one," Mal said, voice quiet and distant. "We were miles from decent medical help. One day, one of them just dropped. No warning, no nothing. He wasn't feeling any pain, but the bits found their way into his heart and cut it open."

Simon nodded, closing his eyes. It was rare for Mal to talk about the war, but it was on his mind. Knowing Simon was about to die made him a bit truthsome.

"Shrapnel can take time to work its way into vital organs," the Doc said. "Days, weeks, or more. This won't take as long."

"Won't happen at all, if Kaylee has her say," Mal added, and Simon smiled.

"Get some rest, Doc," the captain added. "I've got work to do."

Simon nodded again, and Mal started to move out of the room, boots clomping in place. He noticed out the corner of his eye that River started moving away from the wall and back to her brother's side.

"You didn't tell him," Inara whispered, and he turned, to find she had floated out of the infirmary behind him. She brushed her hair out of her face, and her dark eyes locked onto his.

"Doc's got the score already," he replied, glancing back into the room. "He saw the scans, knows how long he's got."

Mal didn't add how he knew this; he didn't need to mention seeing the fatalism in Simon's eyes, or the quiet resignation in his voice. But the doctor understood that he wasn't long for this world.

"And you haven't told Kaylee that it's almost too late," Inara added as Mal started to move off.

"Better that she doesn't know."

"She's going to end up blaming herself for this no matter what," Inara added. "If Simon dies because we couldn't repair the engine . . . do you want her to live with _that_?"

"That's _out_ of my hands, Inara," Mal shot back, and stopped, realizing their voices were raising. He shook his head and moved up the stairs.

"We do have another option," Inara said, right behind him. He wheeled on her, and she stopped in place, seeing the grim, determined set of Malcolm Reynolds' features.

"I've had this discussion once," he said, his voice low and dangerous, in that tone that Inara knew not to argue with. "I'm not having it again."

An eon passed, their eyes locked in a visual sparring match that showed no true winner. He glared at her, and she glared back, and neither of them would back down.

Finally, Mal turned and strode up the stairs, intent on getting back to the engine room. He told himself he still had a chance to save Simon, no matter how slim, if he got the main reactor working again. As he moved up the stairs, Mal tried to push away that feeling, deep down inside his beating heart, that Book's idea was what he wanted to do.

* * *

She got closer to him, and he looked up, seeing her face. Simon smiled, and he saw a flicker of one spread over hers, if only for an instant, before being replaced with that sad look that pained him so much to see.

"What's that?" he asked, feeling a bit cold. River looked down at her drawing pad, and flipped it over, to show a portrait of him, smiling back. He reached up carefully, stroking the page, and managed a light laugh.

"That's good," he managed. "You just did that while I was asleep?" She nodded, and then looked over him, face scrunching up in concern.

"Shouldn't laugh," she said, her voice just a light squeak. "Exacerbates the tearing."

Simon stared back at his sister, his beautiful, broken sister, and felt a sudden sense of profound loss sweeping over him. Her eyes rose and met his again, and he could tell she was feel the same thing, rolling off his mind, but was powerless to push that sensation and realization away.

It wasn't a sense of loss in that he was losing anything. As wounded and damaged as River was, there was no doubt she was still his sister, and still that girl he'd grown up with all his life. The loss was something else, an understanding that he was leaving again, and _this_ time, nothing she could do would save him.

And she knew it too.

He could see the pain in her features, and the glittering tears escaping her eyes.

"No, _mei-mei_. Don't cry."

She didn't try to hold it back, as useless as that would have been. The pad slipped from her fingers, and she pulled him into a hug, sobbing against his neck, and he pulled her as tightly as he could.

"I'm sorry," he whispered over and over again.

* * *

Outside, Inara looked into the private moment of pain and grief, and then turned away. She didn't want to see this again, but she knew that this was nothing compared to the pain that would come once he was gone.

She felt movement close by, and looked up, to see Shepherd Book looming over her, his expression grave and distant. In one hand, he clutched his Bible, the book open and with a thumb on one particular page.

"They know," he said, his voice matching his expression.

"Yes," Inara said. "And we've got less than an hour before its too late, even with the engine fully repaired."

Book was silent, his features as if etched in solid steel. After a long period of still quiet, he turned his head toward her, and she looked up, meeting his eyes.

Silently, Inara nodded.

Book pushed off the wall and flew into the infirmary.

Suddenly, River pulled away from her brother, looking up toward Book, and they stared at each other for a long couple of heartbeats. As Simon glanced between the two, Inara caught the faintest shift in the girl's features, a slight pressing of her lips together, and a change in her posture. It was as if watching a puppet's strings suddenly tensing, or a carefree soldier suddenly recovering his sense of purpose.

For Inara, a woman who knew body language like it was the spoken word, that change made her heart freeze up.

She _understood_.

* * *

Another hour passed.

An electrical spark lanced past Mal, and he loosed a particularly vitriolic piece of Mandarin.

"That was a new one," Wash murmured, hip deep in the ship's core, opposite Kaylee.

"Nearly blew myself across the room," Mal grumbled, and resumed pulling components out of the wall.

"Wash, how long we got?" Kaylee asked, somewhere below the motionless core.

"I'll be done here in ten," he said. "I guess. Why are all the wires purple? There should be reds and blues, too, unless you wired them differently."

"That ain't what I mean," she said, and Mal looked back toward them, to see her pull herself out from under the core, staring straight at the pilot. He glanced up, and then looked away quickly, Mal noting the brief bit of apprehension across his features.

"Well, I'm not . . . ."

"Yeah, you know," Kaylee said, pressing the matter by pulling all the way out from under the engine and leaning closer. "How long do we really have?"

"I'm not sure," Wash replied, glancing to Mal. "I don't-"

"You can tell her, Wash," Mal said, closing his eyes. He'd been dreading this moment, and he didn't want to see her heart get shattered. But it was a cruelty to hide the truth from her anyway.

"There's no worlds in thruster range that can save him," Wash said, not wanting to look at Kaylee. "And we've got less than hour before there won't be any in burn range, either."

A heavy weight fell across the room, like a fog of lead. Mal opened his eyes, and saw the pained look in Kaylee's eyes, even though her face was kept carefully neutral. She understood, and was trying to keep in control, and somehow, seeing her like that made it all the worse.

"Then we'd better . . . ." she paused, voice cracking a tiny bit. "Better get to workin'."

Mal saw the tears in her eyes, and watched as she started to pull herself back under the engine. Something in the way she spoke, or the way she moved, brought up a sudden rush of memory.

"_Were it any one of us, Cap'n wouldn't hesitate."_

He hadn't been there to see it, but that didn't matter. Zoë had recounted it to him.

For an instant, he was back in Xianjing, staring down an entire mob with a confident smile and a loaded shotgun to keep two people from being burnt alive. He was on the bridge, telling the doctor he could stay on his ship. He was outside a small town, talking with the sheriff while handing back a fortune in medicine. He was snarling at Jayne, telling him that he turned on any of his crew, he turned on them all.

He was scooping up an unconscious killing machine in a shattered bar, and giving her shelter from something he really had no cause in. He was spilling blood from a bound, terrified mercenary, to find two of his crew lost to the Black. He was staring down an old comrade, refusing to give him River when he held a gun to his head. He was shooting Ott in the back for trying to sell _them_ to Niska.

"Wash," Mal said, voice quiet. The pilot looked up, and Mal waved him over. He floated across the room to his captain.

"Shuttle engines still run, right?" he asked, and Wash nodded.

"They have separate electrical systems, yeah," he replied. "Why?"

"Get Jayne to prep one. I'm gonna find the Shepherd."

There was a moment of hushed stillness between them, and Wash then nodded as he understood.

"Right," he said, nodding a glimmer of hope in his eyes. "Right. I'm on it."

Wash pushed past Mal and up the corridor. He watched him go, and then turned back toward Kaylee.

She was partway under the engine, but she was staring at him, and he saw that same shard of hope in her eyes.

"Cap'n?" she asked. "You said you weren't gonna . . . ."

Mal closed his eyes, and then shook his head.

"I wasn't," he said. He opened them, and blinked, for Kaylee was close, floating toward him, and his mechanic wrapped her arms around his chest. He grunted as she pulled him into a tight hug, the girl far stronger than she looked on the outside.

"I wasn't . . . I ain't gonna." Mal managed, hugging her back, wondering if he was going to doom them all with his stupid conscience.

"_Mal!" _

Zoë's voice, echoing over the intercom, ruined the moment. Cursing, he reached out and grabbed the 'com while Kaylee detached herself.

"Yeah? What's happening?" Mal knew that tone. She only used it when they were about to crash into a sun or something similar.

"_Shuttle Two just detached,_" she said, and the captain's blood ran ice cold.

"Say again," he breathed.

"_It just detached. It looks like . . . its heading for the Alliance frigate."_

Mal dropped the comm, turned off his magboots, and shoved off toward the stairs down the corridor, Kaylee right behind him. Mal pulled himself down the stairs and hauled himself around toward the infirmary.

Inara stood in the doorway, arms crossed.

Behind her, through the window, Mal could see that the room had a distinct lack of dying doctor.

"_Da-shiong bao-jah-shr duh la doo-tze! _Where the hell is he?" Mal demanded, hauling himself up close to her.

Inara stared back, entirely unruffled by Mal's explosion, and then he understood. Looking into her impassive face, as solid as a porcelain mask, and seeing those eyes boring into him, Mal knew exactly what she was thinking, and where Simon was.

_Gorram_ Shepherd.

* * *

The air aboard the Alliance gun frigate _Hemmingway_ was charged with a mixture of calm, ordered precision and quiet excitement. Crewmen went about their business with a hurried, anxious bounce in their steps, while officers made their rounds and dealt with their areas with eager diligence. Marine squads were patrolling the ship in full kit, and assault gunships and boarding teams were fully loaded up and prepared for combat.

The _Hemmingway_ was about to pounce on its prey.

They were following the radiation trail of a small flotilla of Reaver ships. Six months ago the Reavers had been a myth, at least as far as official orders from Fleet Command had been concerned. The _Hemmingway_, having patrolled border lanes for several years now, had encountered the pirates more than once, but Fleet Command had insisted that the poorly maintained vessels with merciless, animalistic crews were simply isolated savage pirates, not part of a unified force.

For Commander Ernest Townsend, having the truth of the enemy he'd been killing all this time vindicated was a good feeling. It was even better to have his veteran crew selected for an interdiction and suppression mission like this. He only wished it hadn't come at such a massive cost.

One fourth of the Alliance fleet was in shambles. An entire quadrant's naval forces had been horribly mauled battling the Reavers near Miranda right before "The Broadwave" had hit. That would take a decade to replace, and the Alliance's fleets were now spread thin, many ships operating in unfamiliar sectors, even as the Alliance tried to bring more order and stability to the Rim. Coupled with ships being sent to help quell unrest on Border worlds and the more liberal Core planets, and then piled onto public demands to hunt down and eliminate the Reavers . . . the Alliance's resources were being strained to the breaking point.

Normally, a frigate like the Hemmingway would be part of a wolf-pack flotilla, several frigates moving together and supporting each other. These last months, though, they had been operating alone, and being out on long patrols meant they were away from dock for a prolonged period. Commander Townsend had been dealing with malfunctions due to older equipment and some discipline issues due to his crew having been away from R&R for a long while on these hunting missions.

Still, he thought with a bit of good cheer as he walked onto his bridge, the crew was prompt and efficient and disciplined. The prospect of approaching combat had everyone wired up and ready for action, breaking them out of the lethargy that had settled in over the last month.

"Captain on the bridge!" All the crewmen shot to their feet as Townsend stepped into the room, while the marines on duty saluted swiftly.

"As you were," he responded, and they all settled back down. Townsend cut across the bridge, checking the crew pits and stations lining the chamber, making sure everything was in order. His executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Pressly, smiled at the approaching commander while he stood by the pilots' consoles.

"Any news?" Townsend asked, his heavy Londinium accent flowing out. The urban-sector he was from had been built around colonists from the American East Coast back on Earth That Was, so he had a mishmash of inflections that included New England, New Jersey, and New York dimorphisms.

"No change, except we're closing," Pressly replied. His urban-sector had been built from colonists originating from the northwest coast of the North American continent, and thus he had a solid Canadian accent. "They seem to be slowing down, too. Maybe they've run out of fuel, or we're getting close to their dock."

"Pray we are," Townsend said. "I want this done with so we can head back to port." He heard boots clattering along the blue-gray deck plating, and turned to see a young ensign approaching. He stood at attention behind the two officers, waiting on their pleasure.

"Ensign," Townsend said, nodding. "What do you have for me?"

"Sir, short-range comm is picking up a signal coming from the asteroid belt. Appears to be a weak, civilian-grade transmitter. They are hailing us."

"Show me," Townsend ordered, and he and Pressly moved across the bridge to the communications alcove. There, several petty officers and another ensign were on duty, poring over their consoles and holo-imagers.

"What have you got?" the Commander asked.

"Small civilian shuttle," reported the ensign on duty. "Approaching from inside the asteroid belt, on an intercept course. They appear to be requesting aid."

"Put them on," Townsend ordered, frowning.

"Shuttle, identify yourself again," the petty officer asked, while Townsend pulled on a pair of headphones.

"_This is Shuttle Two, detached from Firefly-class freighter _Blackburn_," _the voice replied, followed by a long serial number. The voice sounded cultured, like it had come from Londinium or another Core world.

"State your business once again," the petty officer asked.

"_We are requesting a docking berth and medical assistance," _the voice on the other end replied. _"Urgent. I have a man dying here."_

"Have you scanned them?" Townsend asked, confused. This was very odd. Why would a shuttle be out this far?

"Yes sir," the ensign replied. "The shuttle is not armed, and is otherwise unremarkable. Standard power output, speed, and heat signature for a vessel of that type."

"Allow them to dock at Three. I'll see to this personally," Townsend said, dropping the headphones back on the console. "Have two squads of marines and medical team on standby at Shuttle Dock Three. Pressly, you have the bridge."

Four minutes later, Townsend was walking down a corridor toward the docks on the port side of the frigate. He was accompanied by a Lieutenant Junior Grade and a squad of armored marines under Corporal Niles. A second squad was standing at the airlock hatch along the docking corridor, weapons at the ready. Some ways behind them, the three-man medical detachment was waiting with a gurney and medkits.

"Open it," Townsend said, and the marines keyed open the airlock. There was a hiss of escaping air, and the door slid aside, to show the long plasteel docking collar reaching out to a pitted, dirty gray hatch. Corporal Niles and a fireteam moved up the corridor to the door, and slid it open. They disappeared beyond, and finally an all-clear was issued.

Townsend strode down the corridor and into the dimly lit shuttle, noting the age and wear on the little craft. As he stepped inside, he noted the two men waiting within.

One was a tall, elderly fellow with a bushy white mustache and long white hair, pulled back behind his head. He wore dark clothing, and had a holster at his side, which was empty; the weapon had been confiscated by one of Niles's men. The second was strapped to a stretcher, wrapped up in blankets, and had his face obscured with an oxygen mask.

"Commander," the old man said, a smile on his face. "I am requesting medical assistance for my associate here."

Townsend blinked, taken slightly aback. This man didn't waste time, and there was something in his voice, the sort of calm authority that was reserved for a general or senator.

"What happened?" Townsend asked.

"My vessel suffered a malfunction while operating inside this asteroid belt," the man replied. "My man was injured during the accident by shrapnel."

"You have medical equipment," Townsend pointed out. "Do you not have a medic of your own?"

"He _is_ the medic."

"Unfortunate," Townsend said. "Why are you bringing a shuttle out this way, instead of using your ship?"

"My ship is disabled and undergoing repairs," the old man said, patiently. Townsend got the feeling the man was talking down to him, but the quiet authority in his tone mitigated the feeling of condescension. "We detected the Reaver vessels your ship was pursuing and hid. Our engines will take too long to repair to save my man by getting him to a hospital, but then your vessel came along. A blessing."

"I apologize, but standard Alliance policy is that our facilities are not to serve as an emergency room," Townsend replied, trotting out the standard line for civilians trying to mooch help from valuable military assets.

"I expected that, and that policy is entirely reasonable." the old man slowly opened his coat and drew out a wallet, and from it removed an identification card. Frowning, Townsend took it and handed it to his aide, who scanned the device. The Lieutenant's eyes widened a fraction, and he handed it to Townsend.

The Commander took one glance at it and his blood ran cold.

"Vermillion," he whispered, looking up and meeting the old man's eyes. Suddenly, the quiet authority and down-talk made absolute sense.

"I apologize," Townsend said quickly. "Medical team! Get this man to the infirmary immediately!"

He stepped aside as the marines grabbed the stretcher and hefted the injured figure, and started up the corridor.

"May I?" the old man asked, about to follow, and Townsend gestured for him to do so. He was certainly entitled to it.

Vermillion. Merciful Buddha, the man had _Vermillion-level clearance_. Only full Parliamentary override could outweigh that.

Who the hell _was_ this old man?

* * *

Vermillion-level clearance or not, the Alliance marines still followed procedure. A fireteam swept the shuttle quickly and efficiently, going over the area three times to make sure nothing was out of place. Aside from a few crates containing sundry supplies and parts, nothing was out of the ordinary.

Two marines remained on guard outside as the old man and his patient were escorted to medical. Nothing could get into or out of the shuttle without their knowledge.

The _Hemmingway's_ maintenance computer was running a thousand tasks at once, and when a minor flag went up - maintenance hatch ajar at Shuttle Dock Four - it took three seconds for the overtaxed computer to acknowledge it. In that time, the signal from the maintenance hatch had already ended. The maintenance computer flagged the location and dispatched a team to physically check the area, marking it low priority.

The maintenance team didn't check the hatch for seventeen minutes, and only passed by it to give it a cursory look. The hatch itself was sealed tightly, and they reported it as simply a glitch or malfunction, and marked it for a more detailed check when the teams weren't being forced to deal with more pressing issues, like the serious life support malfunctions on Deck Three.

No one noticed the presence of one extra vacuum suit of civilian design inside a locker near that hatch.

* * *

All was not well on _Serenity_, for the simple reason that Malcolm Reynolds was furious. It didn't matter that he'd been about to do the very same thing as what had been done. Rather, what had incited his fury was the fact that it had been done behind his back. He ran a loose ship with few rules, but the most important rule was that when he gave an order, _everyone_ obeyed it.

And worst of all, there was only one person he could rightfully target with that boiling fury right now.

They had gathered in the dining room. Wash and Zoë were standing together by the crew corridor doorway, Mal's second having positioned herself between Wash and the Captain, who loomed in the middle of the room, glowering. Kaylee was at the opposite end of the room, hesitant to step in when Mal was as angry as he was, while Jayne was doing his level best to stay as far from Mal as he could while watching the powder keg ignite.

In the middle of the dining room, staring right back at Mal with a steel that left everyone astonished, was Inara Serra. If Mal's rage was a crashing storm, she was an unyielding cliff face seeing it off.

They were expecting a torrent of curses or accusations, but that wasn't Mal's way. His anger was usually expressed directly and physically; both Simon and Jayne could testify to how quickly and decisively Mal let his anger loose. He couldn't do that here. Raising a hand to Inara was _unthinkable_ in his eyes, and in this situation he couldn't justify punishing _any_ of his crew, considering the reasoning.

His crew was bound by unity and love, to varying degrees. Even Jayne of all people held strong loyalty toward nearly everyone on the boat. To blame them for risking their lives to save another of their own was not just wrong, it was hypocritical.

But Mal was angry anyway. They'd gone behind his back, disobeyed an order - even if he was about to go against it himself - and done their own thing. That notion sent a white-hot spike of fury through him that he simply couldn't express, so instead he just stood there, his rage clear on his features as Inara floated opposite him, her normally dark eyes now flinty and unyielding.

She was not afraid of Mal. Not now, not this version of him.

He knew it, too.

No one was sure how long they matched gazes, before finally, impossibly, Mal closed his eyes. He let out a long, solid breath, and opened them again. The anger was still there, but the tension began to fade, the storm had boiling itself out inside of him.

She hadn't spoken a single word. She hadn't needed to.

"How long do you think it'll take?" Mal finally asked, turning and looking at Wash.

"Beats me," the pilot said, the spoken words breaking the spell. "They'll have made contact by now, but I don't know how long they'll take to patch up Simon."

"Check to make sure they aren't changing course or nothing," Mal said, and then glanced to Kaylee. "How long on the engines?"

"Gimme another hour," she said, once she was sure Mal wasn't going to hurl lightning bolts at her. "I've almost got the core repaired. Won't be pretty flying, but we'll manage."

"Okay. You best get back on it." Mal turned to Zoë. "What're the chances Shepherd can pull this off?"

"Depends on him," she said, shrugging. "We're in the dark as to what that card can let him get away with." Mal nodded, and glanced to Jayne. The mercenary shrugged.

"Right then. Zoë, Jayne, get weapons ready. I want a plan, in case we need to pull them out."

"Assault an Alliance frigate?" Jayne said, voice incredulous. "Mal, we may be desperate, we ain't stu-" His protest ended as Mal's gaze hardened, and he nodded.

"And find River," Mal added. "We'll need her help on this."

"Ain't seen her since they went off," Jayne said. "Girl's hiding somewhere, I reckon."

"Right. Find her quick. Beat the vents with a wrench if you have to. Just get to it," Mal ordered, and turned back to face Inara.

"Never again," he hissed as the others filtered out of the room. "Never again on my boat."

She stared back, and deep down, Mal understood. In the face of what she had just done, staring him down in the midst of his impotent rage without fear, they both knew that statement was meaningless.

After several long heartbeats, Mal turned away and started walking out of the mess.

It was only after he was out of sight that Inara finally let out the breath she had been holding, and shook just a tiny bit.

* * *

The _Hemmingway's_ ops computer noted that Medical Substation 12-A was opened and accessed for two seconds, and then closed. The incident was minor and the computer flagged it low priority, having a thousand more urgent duties to attend to.

Five minutes later, Petty Officer Second Class Charles Takada was relaxing in his bunk, having just gotten off active duty in one of the sensor/comms stations amidships. As he settled back in the chair shared by the four men who slept here - all of the others on duty - he felt a pinprick at the back of his neck.

He looked up, and started to rise, but then his body went numb. He collapsed forward, feeling a burst of shock and fear right before a hand gently grasped the back of his uniform and guided him softly to the floor. Then, everything went dark.

A moment later, Takada was stuffed into a small closet, minus his identification.

* * *

"So, Mister . . . ." Townsend was saying as they stood outside the infirmary. Within, the ship's medical staff were poring over the injured man, stripping the biofoam from his wound and doing direct tissue repair. It was fascinating to watch Alliance medical technology at work, and he rarely got a chance to see the medics working in person.

"We don't have names," the old man replied, still smiling.

"Yes, I could see that," Townsend replied. "All I saw was your clearance level. It didn't seem I had the . . . right, I guess, to access anything further."

"Would have mattered, honestly," the old man said, turning to face Townsend, and there was a look in his eye, causing a chill to run down the veteran officer's spine. "There's nothing to really see, even if you had."

Townsend nodded, and that ill feeling he'd had before was growing. Straightforward combat, he could handle just fine. A fleet of enemy ships, a band of rebels or Independents on a planet needing crushing, he could deal with that. But this man, his mysterious Vermillion-level clearance, and his injured associate . . . that was like a window into a piece of a world he knew he'd be lost in.

"I can't help but notice the scanners," the old man mused, glancing around the observation bay. "The medical scanners, in particular."

"What about them?" Townsend asked, that discomfort growing a hair.

"You scanned my associate's face when he went in," he said, frowning.

"Standard procedure," Townsend replied. Regulations demanded that all unregistered patients be scanned. No exceptions; even Vermillion-cleared personnel had to be marked, and tracked by High Command. They were given a great deal of clearance and freedom, but even that had oversight, and they weren't allowed to use Alliance materiel unchecked.

"Understandable," the old man said, nodding. "I was wishing to keep this matter discreet. No one knows I'm out here, you understand?"

"Absolutely," Townsend replied, nodding. "But you also understand oversight."

"I do," the old man sighed. "I do."

With that, they went back to watching the medics heal the wounded young doctor.

Townsend didn't notice the tiny tremor of apprehension in the kindly, chilling old man's hands.

* * *

The _Hemmingway's_ comms computer made note of Petty Officer Charles Takada's accessing of the comms system while he was off-duty. It delayed for five seconds in responding, giving the officer time to identify his intentions before flagging the incident.

In that time, a seventeen-character code reserved for Fleet Admirals and Senators was entered into the system, giving the user full access to all shipboard systems. The comms computer immediately canceled the flag and patiently waited the pleasure of the person who had just input the hardwired override code - known only to senators, ultra high-ranking military officials, and sanctioned operatives.

And one _other_ person.

Five minutes later, Takada's identification was returned to his unconscious body, and everything was still and silent once again.

* * *

The tense, anxious mood on the _Hemmingway's_ bridge had exploded. Men were moving back and forth, calling and reporting information, while Lieutenant Commander Pressly hurried across the room to the sensor stations.

"What have you got for me?' he demanded as he approached. The sensor officer looked up and was about to speak, but he didn't need to. Pressly could read sensor data as well as anyone else.

"Go to full alert," he yelled. "All hands to battle stations!" As klaxons began to sound, he spun towards the comms officers.

"Get me the skipper, ensign!"

* * *

The doctors had finished patching up their patient, and had drained all of the blood from his lungs. He was comfortable, though still unconscious, and was going to survive.

"Commander," the mysterious old man said, looking over his associate's body. "I believe I've delayed you long enough. I must get back to my ship so you can get back underway with your task. I'm sorry I held you up."

Townsend shook his head, even as his personal communicator beeped.

"Not a problem," he said, shaking his head. "Whatever you're doing out here is important enough to risk a minor delay in prosecuting those pirates." With that, the commander picked up the radio and put it to his ear.

"Yes?" he asked, and he heard Pressly's voice, tinged with a sudden mixture of excitement and apprehension that put Townsend on alert instantly.

_"We're going to full combat alert, skipper," _the lieutenant commander called.

"What's happening?" Townsend demanded, noting the look of alarm on the old man's face, just as the lights began to dim and the klaxons activated. Troops immediately ran past, heading to battle stations.

"_They've stopped running, sir."_

Townsend's blood ran cold.

* * *

Nestled in the shadows of the shuttle hatches, _unheard_ and _unseen_ by soldier and crewman, a tiny, dark-haired form trembled.

"Coming," she breathed, closing her eyes and bracing herself.

The _**Reavers**_ were hungry again.

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** One of the things I wanted to cover in this chapter was a subtle exploration of the relationship between Mal and Inara. So, instead of being subtle about it, I dropped an anvil on the whole thing. I tend to do that.

The anvil, of course, is that I've always viewed Mal and Inara as _equals_. She may be part of the family of _Serenity_, but she's also the only person other than Book who Mal doesn't exactly _have_ authority over. And ultimately, at the end of the day, what binds the crew of _Serenity_ together is not Mal's authority - though he has that - but the familial bond between the entire crew. That bond overrides _everything _else - even Mal's authority. I've always felt one of the most basic themes of Firefly was that bond of family, and the crew's willingness to take risks and sacrifice themselves for one another - in other words, to do what is right, instead of what's smart.

Next chapter, the fecal matter hits the rotational cooling device. Hard.

Until next chapter . . . .


	34. Chapter Five: Blood

_**Chapter Five: Blood**_

The claw flexed. Bones snapped and cracked. Metal scraped and hissed as it grated on itself, twisted and sharp and dark.

It slid across the black expanse, daggers and spines leaving a trail of blood in its wake, and hurling a slew of screams and promises ahead. The hearts of the strong quaked at those cries, and the wailing voices of the weak singled them out to the beast as cattle for the slaughter.

The unrelenting fires beat within its breast, pulsing into the veil of vacuum and stars wrapping around it. Heat burst from its belly, smearing the darkness with its passing.

A thousand screaming faces were branded into its flesh. Spines and blades protruded from the beast' flanks, like trophies or the broken weapons of broken hunters who had failed to bring the creature down.

It sniffed the darkness, and its eyes opened.

Within its metal skin, a thousand voices bayed in unison, and the beast whirled in its tracks. Fire flew in all directions as its heart pumped ever faster. Heat belched from its body as it came about, eyes glittering with hunger.

The pack tasted prey.

* * *

The dining room scented of gun oil and cordite, and was filled with the clicking and hisses of _Serenity's_ not-inconsiderable personal armory being readied. Mal stepped into the room, seeing Zoë and Jayne preparing their weapons, with a selection of kit drifting in the air, lashed to a couple of hooks on the wall.

"We got somethin' resembling a plan?" he asked, grabbing his favored rifle and checking the weapon.

"'Sides shoot everything that moves?" Jayne replied. "No."

"We don't have access to the Cortex, and even if we did I doubt wash could find schematics on an Alliance frigate," Zoë added. "We're going in blind, if we're going."

"We do, its suicide," Jayne muttered, fixing grenades to his chest.

"Its always suicide with you," Mal replied.

"Sir, as disturbing as the notion is, I agree with Jayne," Zoë said. "Alliance frigate carries at least a hundred marines, not counting crew. We're outnumbered with no guarantees we can get on board."

"Best we just keep our options open," Mal said. "Watch for a chance."

"Resortin' to prayer now, huh?" Jayne grumbled under his breath.

"Sir, if Preacher and Doc get compromised, we should rabbit," Zoë continued. "An Alliance ship on full alert is a bit too much for us to handle, and you know that's what they'd want."

Mal looked up at his second, and then glanced to Jayne, who was fingering Vera quietly, a dark look on his face. He then turned to Zoe, seeing the usual unreadable expression she adopted in these trying moments. he couldn't deny she was right, on both counts; he had six other lives to worry over, and both Doc and Book would want them to escape if things went sour.

On the other hand . . . .

"No matter how late it was when I made the choice, I decided to follow the Shepherd's plan," Mal said. "We're going after 'em."

Jayne nodded grimly, as did Zoë a moment later.

"If that's your call, sir," she said.

"This would go a mite smoother if we had some help," Mal added, glancing to Jayne, who shrugged.

"I haven't been able to find her," the mercenary said. "And I've been smackin' the vents something fierce with a wrench to get her out. She's not showin'."

"There's a lot of places to hide, but not _that_ many," Mal mused, frowning. "River couldn't-" He stopped, suddenly understanding, and then let out a paint-curling curse.

"Sir?" Zoë asked, stepping toward him.

"Shoulda known. _Gorram_ it!" Mal smacked the wall with a gloved fist. "Girl wouldn't have let Shepherd take her brother without her watching over him."

"River's on the Alliance boat?" Jayne hissed, and Mal glanced his way, to see the grim determination moments before replaced by . . . worry?

"Has to be," Mal said. "If that's the case, they might just have a chance. Even if things go bad, she could-"

"Mal!"

They turned toward the crew corridor at the sound of Wash's voice.

"Yeah, Wash?"

"Need you up here," Wash said, his voice tinged with that excited anxiety he usually got in his worst moments.

"What's wrong?"

"Uh . . . I think they got hungry again."

* * *

"Onscreen," Pressly ordered as he strode through the chaotic noise of the _Hemmingway's_ bridge. Immediately, the display at the front of the warship's bridge came up, highlighting the incoming sensor contacts. Four targets, spewing out enough radiation to kill a medium-sized city, burning straight toward their position.

"All stop," Pressly ordered, magnifying the image. The sensor display shifted, showing him detailed readouts of the incoming craft. Two light freighters, a medium transport ship, and a huge bulk hauler that massed as much as his own frigate.

The _Hemmingway_ came to a quick halt.

"Guns, charge?"

"Working, sir!" came the reply from the lieutenant commander in charge of the main guns. "Main cannon at forty percent!" His frigate had one forward-firing main cannon, several rapid-fire bow, dorsal, and stern point-defense cannons, and ship-to-ship missiles.

"Begin working missile targeting solutions," Pressly said, clenching his fingers. "Helm, bring us about, one hundred eighty degrees, and fire main engines, full burn."

"Aye, one eighty course heading, full burn."

The officers didn't question his orders, and the crew snapped to work.

"Gunship control, have squadron prepare to detach on my mark and move into escort formation," Pressly commanded, as he felt the frigate shift underneath him, a subtle change in the artificial gravity that gently pushed him sideways. The starfield outside the main windows twisted around as the ship turned its back to the oncoming Reaver squadron.

The Hemmingway's main engines roared, and the ship accelerated, lancing off into the Black away from the Reavers. Unsurprisingly, the pirates' vessels kept on coming.

_Turn your back to a predator, and trigger their chase instinct_.

"Sir, missile solutions complete on all enemy vessels," the guns officer called back. "Ready to fire!"

"Target pods A1 through A10, main enemy bulk transport. A11 through A15, target medium transport. Fire!"

The _Hemmingway_ shuddered as its entire compliment of anti-ship missiles roared away into space, erupting out the stern launchers like glittering, smoke-trailed bolts of lightning. They twisted away from the frigate and hurtled across the thousand kilometers separating the two forces.

On the display, Pressly saw the missiles stab into the two largest enemy vessels. They punched into the transports' hulls, exploding inside their bays and compartments, causing white-hot blooms of energy and molten debris to cascade from their flanks. The heavy bulk transport shuddered and twisted, but its engines kept flaring and pushing, while the medium transport broke asunder. Debris, corpses, and the spiky desecrations that littered the vessel's hull were hurled in all directions.

"Guns, charge?"

"Main gun at seventy percent, sir!" the guns officer replied.

"Helm, cut forward thrust. Bring us back around to face them."

"Aye, sir. Bringing her around."

"Ops, shunt all engine power to the main guns!"

"Aye, sir. Shunting power."

The _Hemmingway_ began to rotate in space, pirouetting in place while still hurtling away from the Reaver fleet. On his screen, Pressly could see that the massive bulk transport was still bulling towards them, while the light freighters were gunning ahead like baying bloodhounds.

"Gunships, engage light freight freighters. Point defense, target incoming light ships and fire when in range."

"Aye, sir, gunships engaging."

"Aye, sir, point defense cannons targeted."

"Sir," the guns officer called. "Main cannon is fully charged."

Pressly nodded, locking eyes on the massive, wounded Reaver transport.

"Blow them to hell."

* * *

Terror.

It _leaked_ through the vents, a _tiny babbling creek_ from every brain, but it **clashed together**, _coagulating_ and **congealing **and combining and a dozen other synonyms to make a _river of fear_ that roared through the passages and slammed into her stomach sending _her knees shaking and her strength ebbing_

She could taste the blood. _Their_ blood, flecked on her lips, splashing across her face, dripping from her weapons.

She had no weapons. She _was_ a weapon. A _weapon without a weapon _was a paradox.

Her feet were cold. _Everything_ was cold, but that wasn't what was making her shiver it was the cold and the _cold_ and the **frigid cold **of _metal and familiarity _and

_are you afraid_

**yes.**

_are you afraid i tore up my mattress for no reason or that i had a perfectly good reason that you can't see_

No. Not now, not _now_, not nownotnow_notnow__**notnow**_

_cut it_

Temples were throbbing, fear running down her spine

_trying to protect my spine!_

**N**otnowno**tnownot**no_wn_otn_**owotn**_**ow**

you cut it out _you cut it out__**cutitoutcutitout**_

Notnow_NotN_ownoTnO**WNO**TnownOtNOw

_have to write it down_

_**STOP.**_

Focus.

_Simon._

Her eyes closed. _His_ face made the _river_ break and split.

Their _blood_ poured between _their teeth_, and the floor shuddered with _**wrath**_ and _fire_.

Simon.

Shepherd.

_my turn_

One step at a time. _One __**step**_ at a time, down the hallway, toward Medical. Toward them.

* * *

"Wash, please tell me you're hallucinating about your dinosaurs," Mal yelled as he hurried up the crew corridor.

"Hate to ruin your last shreds of happiness, Mal," Wash said, his voice tight. "The Reavers are going straight for that Alliance ship."

"Son of a bitch," Mal hissed, checking the displays as he clattered into the bridge.

"Alliance ship just launched missiles. Looks like they're rabbiting," Zoë added as she slid into the ops station.

"Not rabbiting," Mal said, leaning over the copilot's chair. "They mean to make a fight of this, they're just putting on some distance."

"Don't blame 'em," Jayne added from the back of the bridge. "Keepin' space 'tween yourself and Reavers is a smart notion."

"Firepower that frigate carries, it can kill most of those Reaver ships," Wash agreed. He frowned, checking one of the sensors. "And they just nailed one of them. Blew it to bits."

"How many crew on that big bruiser?" Mal asked. Wash shrugged.

"You could pack a legion on that boat," Zoë said. "Ten thousand, easily."

"They ain't got that many left," Jayne said, shaking his head.

"Probably somewhere round a few hundred," Mal mused. "Still enough to put a serious hurt on - whoa!"

The main cannon on the frigate fired, sending a titanic spike of energy in all directions, dazzling their sensors for a heartbeat. When the images came back, the gigantic Reaver transport was still hurtling toward the retreating Alliance frigate, a twenty-meter hole gouged in its stern. The transport's engines were still firing, and it continued its dogged pursuit of the retreating vessel.

"Look at that thing move," Wash whispered. "That big boat is traveling faster than the frigate, even with giant burny holes in its side."

"Benefits of not bothering with containment," Mal remarked. Reaver ships were notoriously fast for precisely that reason; without using control rods or other containment systems, their engines ran a whole lot hotter. Tended to bake the crews without proper protection, though.

Mal reached across the console and snatched up the intercom.

"Kaylee, how are the engines holding up?"

_"Almost got it, Cap'n," _she called back. _"Give me a few minutes, need to make sure everything's fittin' together proper."_

"Kaylee, hurry it up, we got Reavers comin' back," Mal said, and he heard her reaction on the other end. If there was ever motivation . . . .

He glanced back toward the rear of the bridge, and the mass of mercenary making himself useless.

"Jayne, go check Inara, make sure she's secure. This don't go right-"

"On it," Jayne said, spinning toward the hatch and lumbering out toward the crew corridor.

"Wash, thrusters working?"

"They're green, Mal," the pilot replied.

"Okay, detach us. Nice and slow."

The vessel shuddered a tiny bit as the landing gear extracted itself from the rock, and _Serenity_ drifted away from the asteroid.

"Fire 'em up, but keep is slow and steady," Mal said, voice tight. "Don't want to spook 'em."

* * *

She wasn't in her shuttle, and that got him worried. Where else could she have wandered off to? Unpredictable womenfolk.

Jayne dropped from the top of the cargo bay's catwalk and dove toward the lower door leading down to the passenger section. As he hit the deck and reactivated his boots, he thought he heard the thrusters firing, and that filled him with plenty of worry. The _gorram_ girl was already missing, and now he had to find Inara, tell her to do the obvious, and then get his other girls ready to tangle with Reavers . . . .

Jayne stomped down toward the infirmary, and caught movement inside the medical bay. He glanced inside, and found Inara doing . . . _something_ with one of the Doc's med-bags.

"Hey, 'Nara," he called rounding the room and stepping through the hatch. She glanced up at him, and then went back to putting some drugs or something into the bag.

"I felt the thrusters firing," she said, cutting him off before he could continue.

"Yeah, Mal says we're goin' after 'em now," Jayne continued. "Wants you in your shuttle, as the Reavers are turnin' back toward 'em."

Inara paused, closing her eyes, and nodded, before continuing to pack bottles and what looked like a biofoam injector into the bag.

"The hell you doin'?" Jayne asked after a second, stepping into the room.

"I'm not going back to my shuttle," she replied, closing the bag.

"Mal said you're-"

"We don't have a medic," she responded. "Mal and Zoë are both going to be needed to fight, and I'm the only other person on the ship with anything resembling medical training."

"And Mal wants you in your shuttle anyway," Jayne said, frowning.

"Mal can _gun hoe-tze bee dio-se_," she whispered. "That man doesn't always make the right decisions."

"I thought you trusted him," Jayne said, and she paused. He saw her emotions working faintly on her face - a little twitch of her lips, and flicker in her eyes, a tremor in her shoulders. Nothing big, but he could see it with his years of knowing how to read a man in a standoff or guessing when a man was going to break under intimidation.

"I do," she replied. "I _should_. But Mal is so . . . _complicated_. I never know who I'm dealing with, and the one thing I could trust in him was that he'd do whatever it took to protect one of his crew. And then he . . . ."

"Cap'n's got a tough job," Jayne said, finding himself in the uncomfortable position of trying to make everything smooth out.

"He was going to let Simon die," she said, closing her eyes. "The Mal I . . . the Mal I _know_ wouldn't let anyone on his crew die, even at risk to himself and the others. He was cold but . . . ."

She turned away for a minute and looked across the room.

"You know what happened here when both River and yourself were taken," she said, and Jayne nodded, remembering that time all too well. He glanced down at his hand, and saw the tiny white scars where River's nails had dug into his palm.

"Cap'n did what he had to," the mercenary said.

"I've never seen him do that before," she whispered. "And after what happened with Ott's crew, he's been almost a stranger to me. I don't know who I'm looking at anymore, and when he drew his gun and told us he was going to let Simon die . . . ."

She stopped, and then turned back toward Jayne, bag I hand.

"We're going to need a medic," she repeated, all that weird honesty she'd just been showing was pushed away. Inara then shoved off the wall, floating past Jayne. He turned and watched her go, grunting to himself.

"Cap'n's gonna be more pissed than usual now," he grumbled. He started to follow after her when he heard the light impact of paper bumping off his suit, and paused. Jayne glanced down, and saw a balled up hunk of paper floating away. He reached out and grabbed it, curiosity getting the better of him, and unballed it.

As he did so, he realized it was from the same notebook River had been fiddling with earlier. The paper crackled and protested as he smoothed it out enough to read.

"Hm," he muttered, not sure what to make of it. It was a sketch of a face, but not one he recognized, with a bunch of mandarin kanji written on it he couldn't read. Maybe he'd show it to the girl later, see if she'd say anything about it.

Jayne stuffed the paper into a pocket on his suit and moved off to get his girls prepped. He was at least gonna make damn sure they got River back so he could give the little _xiao gui_ a yelling-at for running off like she did.

* * *

"Direct hit on primary enemy vessel," reported the weapons officer. "Target is still operational and advancing toward us."

On his screen, Pressly could see as much. Fingers of gentle blue light arced out toward the oncoming Reaver ships, the frigate hammering them with point defense cannons, while tiny streaks and flashes of light exploded around one of the light vessels, signs of their gunship squadron engaging the ship.

"How long until they intercept?" Pressly demanded.

"Main Reaver vessel will intercept in three minutes, sir," replied his navigator, seated in his control station below.

"Guns, how long until main cannon is fully recharged?"

"Two and a half, sir," replied his weapons officer. "I can cut that by a third if I shunt energy from our engines and point-defense."

"Do it," Pressly ordered. "Advise all crew to prepare to repel boarders, if this thing turns out bad. "And tell Captain Swanson to keep those Reaver freighters off our hull. Use any means they have, understood?"

"Orders relayed, Captain Swanson acknowledging."

The glitter of point-defense cannons faded from the main screen, and Pressly grit his teeth, watching the oncoming vessels. The light freighters were bulling through the gunship fire, as if encouraged by the lack of incoming fire from the frigate. The desecrated hulls trailed fire and fresh rents in their skins, but they didn't seem to care.

"One minute to main cannon fully charged," the weapons officer called.

"Fire when ready," Pressly ordered. His eyes remained glued to the screen, watching the deadly dance as the gunships tore into the small Reaver ships, even as they rushed toward the escaping frigate. There was a sudden flare on the monitor, and a ripple of satisfaction through the bridge. One of the two Reaver ships blew apart, its core going critical, spreading a gleaming yellow-white stain across the Black for a few seconds.

"Second Reaver vessel is accelerating!" called the pilot, a faint tinge of alarm in his voice. "Its heading for Dock Seven!"

"Marines to Dock Seven, repel boarders!" Pressly ordered, even as the freighter shot in close to the frigate's hull. Docking grapples lanced out, snapping into the Hemmingway's hull and yanking the freighter in tight. "Redirect gunships to main enemy vessel. Standby to-"

"Power surge, main vessel!" the pilot called. "They're-"

"Fire main cannon!" Pressly ordered, seeing the situation developing onscreen. It was a simple, beautiful, and absolutely terrifying event.

The main Reaver ship pumped its entire reactor output into a single burst of furious acceleration, crossing the distance between their ships in a matter of seconds. No sane ship commander would ever do that, and risk destroying his ship's engines. Even as it happened, the bulk vessel's engines seemed to waver and melt, turning white-hot from belching fires clawing across the darkness.

These were Reavers, however. They could taste their prey, and that lent them a hunger that was more than man was meant to know.

The _Hemmingway_ shook as the massive bulk transport careened toward it, and the main cannon roared. A column of blue light ripped through the void and slammed into the oncoming ship, ripping a second gaping hole through its length. Metal tore and parted, and the transport leered sideways, engines flaring and then suddenly dying. Lights all across the Reaver vessel dimmed as its main power suddenly cut out, even as debris and fire billowed from its wounds. Pressly let out the faintest of cheers . . . .

"Brace for impact!"

. . . . and realized that though he'd wrecked the vessel's power core, it was still flying toward them on forward momentum.

* * *

Dock Seven was ablaze.

Thirty seconds prior, two marine fireteams under Corporal Niles had been rushing to the location, the first response team to the expected breach. As they arrived, sealing up their armors' oxygen masks so they could breathe in vacuum, a glittering flare of light scythed through the dock portal. The men hurried to defensive positions along the corridor, rifles shouldered.

The door exploded, and the beast howled.

They boiled through the hatch, straight into practiced, measured gunfire. Eight marines were lined up along the interior corridor, firing in staggered bursts, the flashing hallway lit by strobing bursts of gunfire. Bullets tore down the passage, at the forms thundering up the corridor. Screams and cries were lost on deaf ears, the marines sealed inside their suits unable to hear the battle cries of the hungering predator.

They fell. But as they fell, they staggered back to their feet, or stumbled and crawled forward. They ran on, bullets slicing through their bodies, hunger pushing the mutilated forms onward. Blood stank in their nostrils, wetted their tongues, dripped from their fingers.

Return fire lanced back up the passage, as marines calmly fired, pairs of soldiers reloading in smooth movements. One man went down, bullets from a heavy machinegun tearing through his armor and pitching him to the deck. Another fell to a knee, that leg going numb as rounds sliced apart his thigh.

The pack pressed in closer, its blood up, the scent of the prey near. It cared not for the stings that fell upon it, that sent it flailing to the cold metal to bleed upon the smooth floor. It was blinded, mad, slavering, and oh so very hungry.

"Fall back," Niles began to order, and his troops began to retreat in good order, sliding back up the passage, stopping to grab their fallen. "Withdraw to second junction, seal the-"

A green dart stabbed into his throat, silencing his words, and Niles took a step backward in shock.

The beast closed in, baying. Hands pierced by both pincer and bullet scrabbled forward, mouths screaming in desire. Niles felt his body going numb, his fingers fading away and his legs like rubber.

There was the tiniest of hesitations among his marines, and in that moment, the hungering predator fell upon them. Teeth gouged and bit, scraping and breaking off armor, clubs beating on ceramic plates, blades hacking and squealing on metal.

One of them grabbed Niles as he fell, and teeth slashed down at his neck seal.

"Retreat," he gasped, as a blade slid into his gut. Numb hands went to his belt, yanking a pin from a grenade.

This prey was armored. It was tough, hard to break, hard to consume. The blood hunger pushed the beast to feed on softer prey. Kill the strong, feed on the weak. There were weaker prey elsewhere, and so-

Fire filled the passage as the beast stabbed and gouged, killing the marines who had bravely stood their ground. Heat and shrapnel swept up the passage, tearing flesh from bone, roasting skin and hurling bodies through the air.

The pack was dazed, for a moment. It shook its head, surprised by the shock, and then the scent touched it once more. Hungering, blind, utterly mad, it stormed over the burning bodies, ignoring the fire and incoming bullets.

_More_ blood. The pack needed _more_ blood.

* * *

"Sir, we've got breaches at Dock Seven," reported one of the marines.

On all sides of the little convoy, the armored figures moved with purpose. Four marines surrounded the Captain, Book, and Simon, who the preacher was pushing on a hovering gurney. They moved up the corridor, a second four-man team moving ahead of them to secure each intersection.

"That'll make this more complicated," Captain Townsend remarked. "Who's in that area?"

"Corporal Niles and Fifth Squad, Second Platoon," replied the marine. Book listened intently, switching his attention from the conversation and the groggy doctor. "Last report indicates they were heavily engaged."

"We've just got to hope Pressly has the rest of those ships under control. How many Reavers on that light transport?"

"Perhaps a hundred, sir," the marine replied.

"Unnnh," Simon moaned, bleary eyes looking around the corridor as they hurried along. Book leaned over him before he realized where they were and had a possible panic attack.

"Doctor," the Shepherd whispered. "Shh. Stay quiet."

"Where . . . ."

"The Alliance frigate," Book said. "Heading back to the shuttle. Just stay quiet."

"I hear alarms," Simon muttered, and Book nodded.

"Reavers," he hissed.

The surge of adrenaline from that word did the chemical equivalent of hammering aside the anesthetics, and Simon's eyes widened.

"We can't stay-"

"We're on our way to the shuttle now. Just stay calm."

Book knew that in a few minutes the anesthetics would wear off; the fast-working countermeasures would get him on his feet soon, but not before they got to the shuttle. In the meantime, Simon would be disoriented and confused.

"Where's-"

"Shhh," Book hissed. "She's safe."

* * *

_**Blood**_ ran through the walls.

The _wolves_ howled amidst _cordite and fire_. Screams and yowls and snarls of baying hounds **echoed** through the corridors and _through_ her.

The echoes _danced and skipped _along the walls, _hopping_ from metal to metal, whispering to her ears. She could see the library, _pages_ flying about in the _thunderstorm_, paper ripped and hurled into the maelstrom. It made her eyes water, her head hurt.

_Hey. Stop._

_Confusion. _Soldier, seeing someone out of uniform.

Pause. _Approach_. Grab, twist, _**jab**_. Choking sounds. Flicking fingers, released helmet, chop to the temple.

He went down. _A heartbeat_.

She felt the metal of his knife, the weight of his pistol. They _dragged_ on her fingers.

She vanished among the-

_incoming_

_Alcove_. Scramble, turn, plant feet before

_impact_

_Pain._ Stabbing into her head. _Darkness._

Woozy.

She shook her head. That made it _**worse**_.

blood ran through the halls

_rape_ and _**hunger**_ and **fury** and _**the beast**_

She shuddered, rose to her feet, the klaxons screaming in her ears, beating on her skull.

_blood poured out the lights_, **over the smooth deck**, into her mouth and over her lips

Book. _Simon_.

She shook her head again, and moved down the passage, fighting off _the woozy_, ignoring the blood tricking down her cheek from her skull.

* * *

"Whoa! Did you see that?" Wash gasped.

"I saw it," Mal hissed. "Reaver boat just rammed the frigate."

"They're gonna be all over that ship in minutes," Zoë said, and Mal nodded.

"Alliance still has some advantage," Mal mused, "if they can form up proper. Still, gotta get ready. May have to board that boat to save 'em. Zoe, get the guns ready. Wash, keep us at 'em."

"Gotcha, Mal," Wash said, grabbing the intercom. "Kaylee, how's our engine?"

_"She's spinnin', got some plasma flow, but gravitic impeller's still needin' some work and we're down on both grav boots, so I dunno," _she replied, her voice strained and quick as she worked to get _Serenity_ past limping.

"Can you have the drive shunt plasma into the impeller capacitors?"

_"Yeah, but without a working impeller we ain't goin' nowhere. That'll just shoot plasma all across our backside."_

"That's just what we need, Kaylee," Wash said, and Mal glanced back to him as he moved out of the bridge. He recognized the halfway crazy tone of his halfway crazy pilot.

"Wash, you got some thrillin' heroics planned for us?"

"Just might," he said, eyes locked on the looming frigate. "I see a very black canvas out there, and I want to paint it golden . . . ."

* * *

Simon tumbled off the gurney and slammed to the floor. Book toppled off his feet, managing to catch himself on the wall, while the marines with the group staggered and fell over. Collision warnings sounded across the ship, resounding through the hallways.

"Report!" demanded Captain Townsend, who had managed to brace himself against a wall right before impact.

"We're okay," the corporal commanding the marine squad called, standing up. Book staggered to his feet, and knelt by Simon, who was groggily trying to stand. His limbs were moving slowly, still weighed down by the anesthetics, but Book was able to get him on his feet.

"Come on, doctor. Back on the bed," he urged gently.

"Where is-" Simon mumbled, still fixed on finding his sister, but Book shushed him.

"She's waiting for us at the dock," Book reminded the dazed doctor. "She can take care of herself, we just need to-"

"We've got Reavers entering the ship from multiple points," called one of the marines. "Purging breached sections of atmosphere now, but they've penetrated a lot of compartments with personnel in them."

"Sir, we need you to get to the secondary bridge," the corporal said. "Your safety is critical."

"So are these men," Townsend replied, gesturing to Book and Simon, who was now laying back on the bed, a bewildered look on the doctor's face. Book himself felt a burst of guilt touching him at the regard he was receiving for his deception.

"Captain, we can handle ourselves," the Shepherd said. "You should get to safety, we can reach the docks just fine."

"Ridiculous," Townsend replied, shaking his head. "Corporal, have half your squad escort these men to Dock Three. The remainder will come with me to-"

"Contact, two compartments forward!" one of the marines called, and immediately the armored figures moved ahead, securing the corridor. "Reaver troops approaching!"

"This position is not secure, sir," hissed the corporal. "We'll need to fall back."

"We'll have to find an alternate approach, then," Townsend said, not missing a beat. He checked his datapad. "Two corridors aft, we can use a secondary passage to reach-"

Gunfire lanced down the corridor, and both Book and Townsend drew their weapons as the marines opened fire. Down the passage, dark-clad figures could be seen, and their hungry screams reverberated off the deck.

The Reavers were faster than they expected, and were already upon them.

* * *

The interior of the _Hemmingway_ was chaos. The main Reaver transport had been blasted, gutted, and set ablaze, but the once-human creatures within were nothing if not relentless, and the survivors of the mauling poured in through whatever breaches they could find as the two ships pressed together.

Petty Officer First Class Niles Benson had been off-duty right as the general quarters alert had been sounded, and he was now clad in a rumpled, unkempt duty uniform, sidearm in hand. His heart beat in his ears as he ran down a corridor alongside a couple of other crewmen and a pair of marines.

Boarders. Worse, Reaver boarders. He hadn't been expecting this; he'd been expecting to be sitting at his station in Engineering monitoring heat loads while listening to reports of them snuffing the pirates from long range with impunity. Now, he was entering close combat with-

They came around the corner of the passage, brandishing crooked blades, crude polearms, stolen rifles. Benson stumbled in place and recoiled in horrified shock even as the marines opened fire. He saw only a mass of furious, shaggy, mutilated forms, the flashing corridor lights glinting off metal pins and glistening, exposed flesh.

His pistol was a standard issue Navy stun-gun. It fired rounds that could knock a man off his feet with a massive electrical burst and leave him dazed; only the toughest and hardiest people could take one shot and still be standing afterward. The pistol kicked in Benson's hand, and he saw one of the Reavers topple over from a round to the arm. He steadied his aim; while he could drop a man with a hit anywhere on their body, the stunning effect was most potent with a direct hit to the torso or head.

The Reavers continued to pour down the passage, more than a dozen of them at least, and ran right into the marines' fire. The naval crewmen behind them fired as rapidly as their weapons would charge up, dropping Reavers in their tracks, but the once-human things simply rose, snarling in annoyance. The rifle fire from the marines was hammering them with more permanent results, but many just kept bulling right through the fire.

Benson fired again, the satisfying kick of his weapon doing little to counter the panic that was rising in his gut as the Reavers closed in, screaming and charging like monsters from a horror vid. One of the marines paused to reload, and his partner intensified his fire to cover.

Then, there was blood.

A Reaver ran in close, its stomach torn open, and hacked with the crude handaxe in its torn fingers. The reloading marine was raising his weapon when the blade bit into his neck, punching through his neck seal, and he toppled backward with a stream of blood flying into the air.

The Reaver howled in triumph, and went down from a burst of fire from the other marine, before another leapt atop him and started stabbing at his neck and chest with a long knife. A third rushed into the gap and grabbed a crewman, batting aside his arms and biting into his neck.

"Retreat!" Benson gasped, firing his pistol, and he and the remaining crewman began to fall back, taking a few steps back up the corridor.

A green dart hit Benson in the leg, and he immediately fell to one knee. Numbness struck his leg, and he realized with a giddy burst of horror that he was going to die. The Reaver with the dart gun cast it aside, running straight at him and brandishing a sword. Benson desperately raised his pistol and fired at the charging creature, hitting it in its screeching mouth and knocking it off its feet.

Another one leapt over the toppling Reaver, and jumped atop Benson before he could squeeze off a second shot. Its teeth bit into his shoulder, and he howled in pain, desperately fighting to push the mad creature off him.

Something warm splashed on his face and neck, and the full weight of the Reaver fell atop Benson. He panicked, pushing with all his strength, and the thing flopped to the side, still and unmoving. It took Benson a heartbeat to realize the wet warmth was blood, pouring from a stab wound in the top of the Reaver's head.

He looked up, hearing more screams and howls from the Reavers, and could only stare.

A Reaver's sword rose up in the air, arcing down to cleave into soft, vulnerable flesh. It carved down, and then was deflected as casually as a fly would be swatted aside. There was a flash of stabbing steel, a confused gurgle, and delicate fingers closed over the sword, gently taking it from the dying Reaver's hands. The blade swept up into the next Reaver, cleaving through its chest, and the beast toppled backward in surprise. A third Reaver struck over the falling body with a polearm, but then the sword was somehow slicing up into its _back_, out its chest, and then ripped free with a delicate twist of a wrist.

She wore simple brown coveralls, civilian design. Her hair was long, brown-black, flowing free and unkempt. And she moved . . . the _way_ she moved . . . to Benson, it was like a dancer performing atop clouds.

A Reaver blade slashed at her flank, only to meet steel. An almost contemptuous flick of an arm threw the weapon aside, and she spun inside the creature's grip, slashing out its throat with a knife in her other hand. An axe came at her back, but she was already beneath it, pirouetting and dropping below the arc of the blade. As she rose, blood chased her, both her blades wet with crimson, and the Reaver dropped without a whisper. A Reaver raised a pistol toward her, but her knife was already flipping over, gripped in slender fingers by its tip, and whipped down the passage, burying into the creature's eye.

A Reaver tried stabbing her with a knife, a crude and hopeless gesture compared with what Benson had just witnessed. She deflected the blade, stepping around behind the Reaver as it stumbled past, and her leg lanced up behind her. There was a crack like thunder, and the Reaver fell, neck shattered. Another sword slashed at her face, but she dropped to the floor, spinning on her free hand, and flipped over onto her back. Her sword stabbed up through the Reaver's armpit, and she was kicking to her feet even as it fell, its blade falling into outstretched fingers.

Two Reavers charged her, blades waving. She stepped between them, her weapons rising and falling, and then she moved past without another glance. The Reavers toppled, blood flying from their ripped chests, both sliced cleanly with a pair of matching cuts.

Benson could only stare, stupefied., having never seen anything like this in his career.

She was an angel - an angel of _death_.

Blood covered the walls. Bodies fell and piled among one another, a twisted collection of limbs and dying beasts. Their cries of pain and defeat hammered Benson's ears.

She slid among them, quicksilver in human form. No blade could touch her, and no blood wetted her clothing.

Benson watched as the angel of death spun around her last victim, slicing out his neck with all the effort of peeling an apple, and then moved on, only the faintest tremble in her fingers leaving any sign she had even felt what she'd just done.

She disappeared down the silent passage, and Benson let out a single amazed breath as the angel vanished.

And through it all, he suddenly realized, he had never even seen her face.

* * *

They came down the hallway, a dozen or more, firing their weapons as they charged. The marines met them, guns blazing. Townsend raised his pistol, firing over the marines' shoulders, the stun gun hissing and popping.

For the span of a single second, Book debated what to do. He could break off and try to find his own way back to the docks. He still remembered the layout of this class of Alliance frigate quite well. That would let him escape unseen, and probably silence the few people who had seen his and the doctor's faces.

That, in his eyes, made retreat untenable.

Alternately, he could stand and fight. There was no peace for the Reavers, now that he knew the cause of their madness. They were already dead, and he could only end their pain.

And, if he stood and fought, he could save these men's lives, as well.

Book drew his pistol, reminding himself again that the Reavers were beyond reason, let alone saving. He could only pray that the Lord would welcome their lost souls and forgive them their actions.

And, hopefully, his own.

Book raised his pistol and opened fire, stepping between Simon's gurney and the beasts charging down the passage.

* * *

Simon.

_blood_

Shepherd.

**enemy**

Reavers.

hate

Soldiers.

h**ungerkillviolenceb**rok_enfre__nzy_teethclaw**sra**_**peconquersl**__aughte_rcattlekill**ma****inburnkill**

Simon.

_Reavers_. More, in the corridor.

_Stab. _Deflect. **Slash**.

Parry. Step. Cut.

_Duck. _Cut. **Slash**.

Step. **Slash. **_**Disarm**__._

Slash. Kill. **Survive**.

silence

Corridor empty. Move on. Could hear their _pages_, close now.

Simon.

Shepherd.

_**protect**_

* * *

They came boiling down the passage, a mass of mutilated, barbed hunger.

The marines opened fire, rifles roaring in the confined space, and the Reavers stumbled, many dropping to the deck under the fusillade of bullets. Some struggled back to their feet, while others simply vaulted over the fallen and charged on.

Book aimed carefully, placing his shots for maximum effect. He knew a leg or arm shot wouldn't do much more than inconvenience a foe who enjoyed shoving barbed rods through his skin, but a round to the throat or head would drop them quickly.

He pulled the trigger, reminding himself that the fact he still hated doing this was a good sign.

The Reavers pressed on, the few with firearms opening up as they ran, spraying their position. Book pushed Simon back and into an alcove, while one of the marines grabbed a comrade who had taken several rounds and carried him to safety. Green darts - paralyzing agents - deflected off the wall close to where Book had been standing. He returned fire, weapon thundering in his grip, and another Reaver fell.

"How many are there?" he yelled, firing another measured shot that dropped one of the pirates.

"Dozens, easily," Townsend hissed. Book was impressed at how cool under fire the captain was. As he watched, the _Hemmingway's_ commander checked his datapad, even as rounds deflected off the wall overhead.

"Looks like we're less than a hundred meters from one of the hull breaches between their ship and ours," Townsend muttered. "No wonder we've got a small army attacking us."

"The more we stop here, the fewer we'll have to worry about hurting the rest of the crew elsewhere," Book said, dropping another Reaver. The creatures were now within a dozen meters for the leading marine fireteam.

"Right," Townsend growled, his stun pistol popping. "We still need to fall back. There's too many."

"I agree."

As Book spoke that, the marines began to move backward, firing as they retreated and giving ground to the Reavers.

That was a mistake.

Withdrawing from a predator triggered their chase instinct. The Reavers suddenly seemed to move even faster, howling with fury and ignoring bullet wounds as they saw their victims backing down before them. They charged over blood-slicked decks, weapons firing and blades waving.

The lead marine fireteam emptied their weapons into the oncoming throng, their sudden bursts of full-auto fire their only indication of the fear they were suddenly feeling. The Reavers charged through the fire, dying a dozen at once, and the survivors fell upon the Alliance troops.

One-on-one, the marines would have been able to take a Reaver in hand-to-hand combat. For all their madness and resistance to pain, they were only human, and the marines were well-trained in melee combat. However, the Reavers outnumbered the marines many times over, and when they fell upon the terrified soldiers, they did so in wave of swinging blades, throaty howls, and biting teeth. Five men were borne under the wave in seconds, swords and knives and axes cutting into the joints of their armor, Reavers biting and clawing and tearing at the bodies beneath.

Townsend let out a savage curse, grabbing a dropped rifle as more Reavers leapt over the bodies of the fallen and the dying, and opened fire. Book put down two more Reavers with close headshots, and his pistol clicked empty. He grabbed for a second magazine, and frantically began to reload, even as the Reavers closed in. He whispered a swift, heartfelt prayer of protection as he worked to reload the weapon, and then raised it, firing point-blank into a Reaver head.

The creature dropped, and Book shot the next one behind it. That cleared his vision, and in that moment . . . something had changed.

As he watched, still aiming his weapon, the middle of the mass of Reavers suddenly seemed to collapse, the charge ending in mid-stride, as if something was interrupting them. The lead creatures were cut down by the surviving marines, and that let Book see what was happening.

His blood ran cold, even as his heart leapt at their deliverance.

In the center of the Reaver swarm, he saw a single small, slender form, blood flying all around her as the long blades in her hands flashed and whirled.

"No," Book breathed, even as his heart screamed _yes_.

"What?" Simon asked, trying to sit up. His eyes widened as he saw the spinning, whirling shape. "River? _River_!"

"Who?" Townsend said, confused, but as he watched, he found himself fascinated and amazed at the display before him.

It _was_ River, and she tore through the Reavers like a chainsaw through taffy. Book had witnessed her prowess first hand a month past when she'd saved the crew from Ott's pirates, but he'd never seen her wielding weapons before, nor had he seen her this . . . _driven_. She was possessed, a whirling dervish that had slain a dozen Reavers in the few seconds between her appearance and now.

Book shook himself out of the fascinated stupor he was in, raising his weapon.

"Captain, we have to help her!"

"Right," Townsend said, raising his weapon once more. He didn't know what was going on, but he knew how to capitalize on an advantage. "Marines, secure this corridor!"

The few remaining marines began to fire at the Reavers, pushing forward. Their shots were careful and measured, for even as they were sighting targets, River was upon them, her weapons cleaving through the enemy. As Book watched, picking off a target with a well-placed round to the throat, he saw Reavers close in on her from multiple angles. In response, she suddenly leaned backward, her back almost parallel to the floor, and her arms circled, both blades flying in savage arcs. Four Reavers went down in a single motion, and she snapped back up in time to block, parry, and kill a fifth.

Rounds punched through one Reaver, tearing apart its chest. Another fell to its knees, and River cut its throat as she passed. She sliced out another creature's hamstring, and a marine put two rounds into its head as it fell.

Reavers were breaking off from River now that they were taking more fire from the Alliance troops, and were charging the survivors. They gunned the Reavers down without mercy.

The corridor was slowly clearing. Between the marines' weapons and River's near-suicidal assault into the heart of the enemy, they had a chance.

"Book," Simon yelled, a horrified warning, and Book glanced back, to see Simon's wide eyes as he stumbled off the gurney. He pointed, and the Shepherd looked back toward the Reavers, following his finger.

He _saw_, and terror gripped his heart in an icy vise.

* * *

The pack had found prey. Not the hardened shell and burning fire of the tough animals it had been slaughtering. No, this was the best kind of prey: small, soft, pliable.

It was fast, though. Stinging blades tore through the pack, sending hunters to the cold floor, howling and bleeding. But on they came, sensing a prize most worthy. The prey was fighting back, and that simply sent the pack's blood frothing and drew it closer.

One of the pack raised a weapon, screeching in victory even as a blade slashed into its throat. It pulled the trigger in its death throes.

The pack tasted _blood_, sensed _weakness_, and closed in.

* * *

Screams. Baying hounds. _Blood. Rape_.

_they were full of rape_

Spin. _Twist. _Stab.

Duck. _Step. __**Parry**_**.**

_blood ran from their eyes,__** splattering **__their teeth and their __**chins**__ as they __bit and gnawed_

**Left. Down**. Stab.

Slash. Spin. _Kick._

_clawing fingers reaching for her even as she hacked them off_

Shoot. **Drop**. Roll.

Rise. Slice. _Duck._

_**crimson **__splattered her clothes, fell over her face, matted her hair_

**Hack**. _Retreat. _Counter.

Deflect. Dive. _Circular slash._

_jaws agape __at the prey__, jaws agape __**at the dance**__, jaws agape while _gasping for air

_Chop. Kneel_. Rise.

**Stab. Shoot**. _**Spin.**_

_blood on her __tongue __and in her __**fingers**__ and in the __**spots **__and won't wash out_

Cut. _Deflect. _Kill.

rage. _hate. __hunger._

**Chop. Hack. Kill**.

_numb._

Kill. **Kill**. **Kill**.

Numb?

_....kill..._

yes, numb. very numb, running up her _neck_, down her _spine_, through her _hands_

_had to keep killing but_

Darts. _Two of them. __Green_. Penetrating her throat and shoulder.

Oh. Didn't see

_hands grabbing her_

see

that

_coming_

_hunger and victory. baying __beast__ wanting blood and more._

no.

_NO!_

No

_tearing at her clothes, howls, teeth, biting_

falling.

_weapons slipping_

I'm

_Simon_

sorry

* * *

-

* * *

Until next chapter . . . .


	35. Chapter Six: Faith

_**Author's Note: **_This chapter is significantly shorter than usual for me, particularly compared with the size of the last one. Dramatic necessity called for its brevity, and I couldn't just _leave_ you with that cliffhanger from last chapter, now _could_ I?

_**

* * *

**_

_**Chapter Six: Faith**_

She fell.

He didn't see her fall, but the horde of mutilated, screaming bodies seemed to collapse upon her, howling in savage triumph and hunger.

There was a single heartbeat, in which the utmost horror filled him, spreading outward to every extremity, freezing him in place. A sensation so profound, so potent, that he felt tears in his eyes, a shiver in his back, and a sick dryness in the well of his mouth.

"River," Simon breathed, stumbling forward, hating himself for being unable to reach her, hating his hands for shaking, hating everything in a single flash of terrible despair.

He dropped to one knee, bashing it against the cold metal deck. He didn't care about the pain, banishing it as he scrabbled for the metal lying at his feet. His hands closed around it, and he felt a sick certainty in him as he stood.

She was going to die.

* * *

She fell.

it had been _fourteen months_, _eighteen days_, _seven hours_, and _twenty-three minutes _since she'd last felt this.

Cold. Alone. _Helpless._

They closed in, their voices - _their voices_ - filling her with _**blasphemies and madness**_. Clawing fingers fell over her, _teeth gnashed_, hunger and **blood**

**so much blood**

They tore, hissing and snarling and ripping and she _couldn't fight_, her limbs unresponsive, her mouth only able to gasp as they pulled her down, _**crowding**_ around

_yea verily, though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death_

but that was not

_i shall fear no evil_

**she couldn't**

blood splashed over her, and _there was __**light**_

_for thou art with me_

* * *

_The brothers were chanting and singing. The garden smelled of fresh produce, tilled soil, warm breeze, the hint of pollen coming from the spring season. He could see the cracks in the weathered stone, hear the babbling of flowing water, and the resounding calls of Latin, Mandarin, and English as they sang their hymns. The bell tolled, bright and solemn, and the winds rustled the leaves, casting up the scattered blooms of fallen flowers._

_Serenity_.

It was so long ago, and so far away.

He felt the recoil, and saw a graceful arc described by the tumbling brass shell casing. The flashing lights of the warning klaxons glinted off its polished surface as it tumbled past. Even over the report of gunfire, the howls of the monsters in the passage, and the sounds of his memories, he could hear the casing bounce off the floor and roll aside.

A head came apart in the middle, the round punching through skull and skin and brain and barbs, and the Reaver dropped. A second punch of recoil, another elegant tumble of shaped metal, and another head snapped aside, an expanding flower of blood reaching out to form a falling spiral as the creature spun about to the floor. A third jerk and kick, another delicate ringing sound, and a third tumbling body, an arc of crimson rising and chasing it to the floor.

With each squeeze of a trigger, he took a step. With each step, he heard the abbey's bell. With each toll of the bell, he whispered a line of the verses - lines he hadn't spoken in a long time, but which came to him like commandments seared into stone tablets.

_"Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance . . . ."_

The pistol fired twice more, and two more of the twisted, lost souls fell. One spun toward the intruder as he strode towards them, and raised a blade. The weapon arced towards his head, but he was already ducking below it, and fired a shot into his foe's gut. As the creature's arm passed, he reached up, grabbing it, and shoved his pistol into the thing's mouth.

_" . . . . and for thy possession, the ends of the earth . . . ."_

He pulled the trigger, and the Reaver jerked back eyes widening as blood flew from its mouth and the back of its head. The blade dropped from slack fingers and into his hand. Another whirled on him, but the blade was already flying up, throwing its axe aside, and hacked down in a single vertical slash. More blood on his hands.

_"Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron . . . ."_

There was no time to debate morality. He'd already made the choice to kill, and as the sword hacked into another Reaver's shoulder, ripping into its chest, he could only fall back on the skills he'd developed long before he'd taken oaths. The pistol in his right hand fired, blowing out a Reaver's chest, and he slashed with the captured blade, opening another's neck. He stepped into the gap left by the fallen, and met another Reaver, disemboweling it with two quick swipes and stepping around it. He fired a shot behind him, blowing its brains apart as it fell.

_"Thou shalt dash them in pieces, like a potter's vessel . . . ." _

He fired two more times into the next Reaver, and the pistol clicked. He had to pull the trigger again before the noise registered, as he cut down another Reaver, arms whirling in a blur. The pistol fell from his hands, and he took up the long, curved, jagged sword in both hands, legs spacing out in a wide stance. He swept aside a swinging axe and chopped inside the gap left, cleaving off the Reaver's arm, and he shoved the creature aside. Another came at his right, and he spun, catching the creature's spear on the side of his blade and chopping into its face. As he yanked the blade free, he felt a distant pain in his arm; the spear had slashed into his bicep as he'd struck.

_"Be wise now therefore ye kings . . . ." _

His age meant nothing, as adrenaline pumped into him, and the words hissed out of his mouth. He felt the beating of his heart inside his ears, a rapid-fire hammer-blast mixed with a rushing ocean wave as crimson flew from his sword, and heard the ringing of the abbey's bells in the back of his mind. They had turned almost all of their attention his way, sensing more worthy prey, leaping off their victim. He tore through them, his blade rising and falling in swift, singular motions, hacking a foe down like wheat and then rising back to a solid guard before the next foe could get too close.

_"Be admonished ye judges of the earth . . . ." _

They boiled around him, attacking from all sides as he continued to advance, cleaving a path through them. Sweat stung his eyes, blood splattered his clothes, and Reaver blades found their marks. A slash to the side of a thigh, a deflected spear cutting his flank, a knife scratching his ribs. He bled from a dozen wounds, but he did not falter, his weapon slashing and parrying. He stepped over bodies already cooling from the last suicide charge into their ranks, and shoved aside the dying he was leaving in his wake.

_"Serve the lord with fear . . . ."_

He reached her prone body, just as a blade slashed down his back, and a horrible, jagged pain ran up his spine. He whirled, slashing, a savage cut that nearly tore a head from its shoulders. The sword stopped and caught itself between bone and ligament, and he ripped it free with another spray of crimson. The display only drew the others in closer.

_" . . . . and rejoice with trembling . . . ."_

He stood over her, blood dripping from a multitude of wounds, as they rushed around him. He held his blade in both hands, hacking with swift, up-down motions, knocking incoming blades aside and striking inside the opening, just as his long experience dictated. He spun and pivoted over the prone girl, keeping his wide-spaced stance, and would not let them near.

_"Kiss the son lest he be angry . . . ."_

His face was set and solid, even as his knees trembled and his blood poured out, dripping onto her paralyzed form. He hacked, he spun, he struck, he parried, a whirling display of death at odds with everything he'd sworn he'd follow years ago, when he'd abandoned the old lifestyle and the old mission.

_". . . . and ye perish in the way, though his wrath be kindled but a little."_

The Shepherd would protect his flock, even to his last breath.

* * *

metal chased metal and _**metal**_ chased **blood **and _metal chased _flesh and _**metal chased souls**_ and

_the book's _pages rustled and flew, whipping about _in windstorms of chaos _and quotes and **psalms **and _**fury**_ and _pins to wood_

_the screaming filled her veins, mixing with the __**numb**_

she wanted to scream

**light was everywhere**

_**blood**_ mixed in, splattering on _the pages_, blurring the _verses_

made no sense, while **making s**ense _yet disregarding the _**pres**ence of **superstr**ing theory, _multiple __**bin**_**ary** fu_**nctions**_ in the **garden of Eden **with _**he being **_one and she being zero **and the **serpent _being corrupted data _purged **by proper **deletion f_unctio_ns and restored _security measures inside __chem__ical compounds of _**strong nuclear **for**ce** **c**_**om**__**p**__ar_ed with gravitational **pulse **_**and they tore at her clothes while **__being pushed by errant __biological functions tha__t subsumed the _self _**and activated the pack/herd mentality **_to _fall _upon her _and him and __everyone with claws and teeth __and __**hunger and rape and fury **_and

A blade went through the shepherd's stomach.

She **screamed**. Through the _numb_, through the _chaos_, she **screamed**.

That made them hungrier.

* * *

It was a murderously powerful punch to the stomach, slicing inside his gut and out the front of his belly.

_Nothing new there_.

He reversed the grip on his sword and stabbed it out behind him, up into the Reaver's chest. The creature fell backward, losing its grip on the weapon, and the Shepherd spun, hacking and slashing even as he tried pulling the weapon free with his other hand.

The Reavers closed in, pressing tightly around him, sensing his weakness. Some were charging toward the Alliance marines, and were gunned down. Dimly, he was aware of an increase in the gunfire in the hallway.

Something hit him in the back. He fell to one knee. The sword slashed and hacked, cutting down one, then two, then three more Reavers. He tried to stand.

An arm grabbed around his neck. Teeth bit into his arm. Blood poured down his shirt. A knife jabbed into his ribs.

Noise roared in his ears. Brass rained down around him. Blood flew through the air, covering his face and hair. The pressure around his neck eased, and he toppled forward, onto a rent body.

More screams. He heard a meaty impact, and saw a Reaver fall, head staved in by a rifle butt. Someone stepped over him, firing a rifle from the hip and hosing the corridor. Brass clattered to the deck, and then there was silence, save for the panting of the wounded. He squinted, trying to look though the flashing light at the figure overhead, who lowered a hand, fingers not encased in glove or armor.

Book took them, and started to stagger to his feet, and looked into the face of his rescuer.

Simon Tam stared back, face speckled with crimson, rifle held awkwardly in his hands, blood dripping off the stock.

* * *

"I can stand," the old man protested, but Townsend would have nothing of it, ordering one of his medics to see to the man, while the marines moved forward and cleared the corridor. The captain glanced across the corridor toward the young doctor, who was leaning over the gurney, tending to the girl who had leapt into the middle of the Reaver horde and slaughtered almost half their number by herself.

She was covered in blood, cuts, and bruises. Her clothes were torn and ripped, and Townsend couldn't tell if the Reavers had managed to begin doing what they did worst on her before the old man's insanely brave intervention had pulled them away. The doctor moved over her with quick yet careful precision, and Townsend looked into the man's eyes and expression as he tended the girl.

There was love there. More than just a professional relationship existed between them, he realized. Were they relatives, or lovers? He had no idea.

But their faces were familiar. Something about seeing those two together triggered memories, but he couldn't bring them to the forefront.

"We have to leave," the old man said, standing and moving away from the medics trying to patch him up. They had only managed to bandage the worst injuries, and those with simple sterile cloth and compresses.

"Yes, I don't blame you," Townsend said, pulling his gaze away from the maddeningly familiar pair, and checked his datapad. "We've got Reaver contacts all over the ship. Bulkheads and compartments are sealed, but they're everywhere on the boat. We'll have to clear them out room by room and purge the atmosphere in all the unoccupied sections."

"Which is why I must get out of here and on my way," the old man said.

"We can have our medics patch up you and your . . . other associate," Townsend offered, but the old man shook his head.

"We'll survive. And my doctor is more than capable of dealing with these injuries."

Townsend was doubtful, but the man had Vermillion-level clearance. What was he to say to that? The last thing he needed was a negative report sent back to the brass with a Vermillion tag attached to it.

"Sergeant," Townsend called, and one of the marines hurried over. "Take your fireteam, and escort these three to the shuttle at Dock Three. The rest of us will head to the secondary bridge and establish control there."

"Aye, sir," replied the marine, and looked up to the old man. "Sir, if you'll come with me?"

"Yes, I will," the old man said, smiling and limping after them. Despite his protests, the sergeant detailed one of his men to help him walk, while the doctor maneuvered the gurney with the dangerous yet helpless little girl down the passage.

Who were they? Townsend asked himself. He'd check the scans once he'd gotten this situation under control, because that knowledge nagged him, and told him he was missing something _very_ important.

* * *

They could still hear the sounds of combat throughout the ship: the klaxons of alarms, the occasional explosion, muffled gunfire. The trio of active marines moved up the passages and corridors, sweeping them and securing their route, while the rest followed behind.

Simon kept glancing to them, watching for any signs they recognized him or River. He knew they probably had no idea who the two fugitives were, but that didn't ease his mind much. All it took was one bright light and a radio call, and he knew the captain had been staring at them the whole time.

"S-Sim . . . on . . . ."

"Shhhh," he whispered to her, as her jaw quivered. He reached down to touch the side of her face, the only part of her he knew wouldn't be numbed from the paralyzing darts. "We're going back now."

"Can't feel any . . .thing . . . ."

"Its just the paralytic," he assured her, trying to keep his eyes on both his sister and the corridor ahead. Despite himself, he kept checking the marines with them. "Once we get back to . . the ship," Simon stopped himself, nearly blurting out _Serenity's_ name, "I can give you a counteragent."

"Bleeding," she said, and he looked back down to her, checking to see if she was losing blood. She had cuts and gashes over her torn clothes, but wasn't bleeding anywhere, and he'd mad sure the Reaver's hadn't hurt her in other ways.

Then, Simon saw her eyes, and stopped.. They were locked on Book's hastily-bandaged form, and he could see at just a glance that the bandages were rapidly soaking through with blood.

It took Simon only another's second's analysis to conclude Book wouldn't last another half hour with those injuries untreated, let alone if they got into another fight. He pushed the gurney up closer to where Book was, and spoke.

"B . . . sir," he said, quickly remembering that he was supposed to be the Shepherd's subordinate. "I think we need to stop for a moment and deal with your injuries."

"There's no time," Book replied, shaking his head as they limped along. "We can deal with them once we're safely back on the ship."

"With . . . respect, sir, your wounds are serous. If we stop for a few minutes I can stabilize them further. You're running a risk of bleeding out."

"And now, we run too much risk of being attacked," Book replied, his voice firm and solid in spite of his injuries. "We are almost there anyway."

"I don't think-" Simon was about to say, but Book turned to glare at him, and the doctor recoiled instinctively. There was a sudden flare of power, authority, and sheer determined steel in his eyes that it rendered him speechless for a second.

The last time he'd seen glares anywhere _near_ as harsh and forceful was when Mal killed men in cold blood.

"We are _leaving_," he snarled, in a voice that sounded less like a man of God, and more like the _wrath_ of God.

Book stared at Simon for a moment, and his gaze softened slightly.

"I will not risk any more of my team in another engagement with Reavers. We are in no condition for combat, and we must get off this ship so the marines can return to clearing the frigate of intruders. Understood?"

Simon straightened, nodding.

"I understand, sir."

Book nodded, and they moved on.

They could hear gunfire faintly through the bulkheads as they moved, and twice the marines had to pause to unlock sealed compartments; the Reavers were contained within the ship, and judging by the calm chatter of the Alliance soldiers, they were sweeping the ship deck by deck, and driving the Reavers back.

"There are a significant number of hostiles in the docking area," reported the leader of the marines, glancing back to Book as they hurried up the passage. "They appear to be regrouping near where the first ship docked, but there are none near Dock Three."

"Good," Book said. "We must move quickly."

* * *

The corridor leading to Dock Three was empty, save for a few bullet holes, some blood splatter, and couple of Reaver corpses. Simon noticed River shudder as they moved past them, in spite of the paralyzing chemicals running through her blood.

"We'll be alright," he whispered to her, touching her cheek. "Almost there."

"Back," she mumbled.

"No, we can't go back," Simon said, guessing at her meaning. "We have to get to the shuttle."

"Turn . . . your back on . . . "

"Don't worry," he said, as they approached the docking collar. The marines moved to help lift River off the gurney, but Simon picked her up himself before they could do so. The last thing he wanted was for one of them to get a close look at her face and make a connection to a year-old wanted poster.

Book was already inside, the marine helping him easing him into the pilot's chair. Simon set River down on a bench inside the cargo section and strapped her in, while Book started up the shuttle's engines. He spoke quietly over the radio to the frigate's controllers, and a few seconds later, after the docking collar retracted and the door sealed, the shuttle shuddered and broke away.

"We're free," Book said, his voice distant, and Simon stepped around to him, the shuttle's basic medical kit in hand.

"Let me see to those," he said, but Book shook his head, hitting the shuttles engines at full blast.

"There'll be time when we get back to _Serenity_," he said. "I need to fly the shuttle."

"You can set to autopilot," Simon offered. "We can-"

The shuttle's proximity alarm suddenly started beeping, and they both looked to the radar display. Flashes of blue laser light - from the _Hemmingway's_ point defense guns - began lancing past them. For a heartbeat, Simon thought the _Hemmingway_ was firing on them, but then he realized with giddy horror what they were actually shooting at.

The Reaver ship docked on the side of the frigate had detached and was gunning right for them.

Over the beeping alarm, Simon heard River moan, and he suddenly understood.

_Turn your back on a predator, and you trigger their chase instinct._

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**So, in exchange for one cliffhanger, I leave you with another. You're welcome. :P

Part of this chapter was inspired by the events of the _Better Days_ Firefly comic, where Book proves his badassery by chanelling some Miyamoto Musashi, whipping out a giant curved machete, and ripping apart a group of battle robots attacking the crew. And that was pretty damn awesome, I think, so I used the idea of Samurai Book here in this chapter, with a little of the _Warhammer 40,000_ aesthetic thrown in, where the holy warrior charges into a horde of screaming monsters swinging a sword and blasting with a pistol, yelling scriptures and whatnot. Maybe I'll have Book wield a chainsaw in a future story arc :P

Last chapter, I was actually worried people would complain that I had River actually _lose_ while fighting the Reavers, considering how she massacred them in the movie. Turns out everyone considers it just as plausible as I do that River could fall off the knife's edge. That makes me feel better. :D

Until next chapter . . . .


	36. Chapter Seven: What Does That Make Us?

_**Chapter Seven: Ponderous Condemned Champions**_

"Is the radio working?" Book asked as he swung the shuttle back toward the asteroid field. On the radar display, the forbidding shape of the Reaver vessel closed in on them like a swooping bird of prey.

"I don't know," Simon said, standing beside him and fiddling with what he guessed were the radio controls. "I've never had to-"

The ship shook. Simon nearly fell to the deck, and he heard River moan quietly - in pain or fear, he didn't know. The paralytic that the Reavers' darts were coated with numbed most sensations except pain, and as far as he knew, they liked it that way . . . .

"EM weapon," Book hissed, through gritted teeth, and several monitors flared, flickered, and went dark. "That one was close."

"What do I do?" Simon asked, still trying to figure out how to operate the communicators.

"Dial down to your left," Book whispered, turned and weaving the shuttle in ways it wasn't designed to handle. "Down. Down. There. Turn counterclockwise to three seven seven one three."

Static boiled out of the small speaker by Simon's ear, and he grabbed the radio microphone.

"Can they hear us?"

"Give it . . . a try," Book said after a second, his words forced. His knuckles were pale, gripping the control yoke for the shuttle tightly, and he swung the ship around again. "They're right behind us."

Simon tried the radio, speaking into it quickly, and almost blurted out _Serenity's_ name on an open channel before remembering their deception. As he tried to raise the ship, however, nothing came back but static.

The shuttle jolted suddenly, pitching Simon off his feet, and then the craft began to spin around. Book's arms pumped and weaved, sending the ungainly craft through an evasive maneuver that ended with the doctor slamming sidelong into a bulkhead and left him groaning in pain.

"They're right . . . on our tail," Book said, his words slow and uncertain. Simon clambered to his feet, and saw the distant, glazed look in the Shepherd's eyes even as he tried to keep the shuttle twisting and dodging. Another EM beam lanced past them, and sparks of lightning shot over the shuttle. Monitors flickered and faded, lights blinked, and the shuttle banked hard to one side. Simon barely managed to catch himself on the wall as the little craft rolled and bucked.

Book was passing out from blood loss, Simon realized. The bandages on his body were soaked through with crimson. The doctor reacted quickly, grabbing the shuttle's medkit and taking out a biofoam injector. Book didn't argue as Simon pulled up his shirt and stripped away his bandages, to reveal the bloody, barely-clotted gashes and cuts in his flank.

"Can't hold . . . much longer," Book hissed, his voice slurred. His eyes glazed over, and as Simon began to pump the foam bandage into his skin, the preacher keeled over, sliding sideways out of the seat and releasing the controls. His weight settled onto Simon, who caught him and eased Book to the floor. The shuttle shook and spun, sliding out of control without Book at the helm.

As he laid the preacher down, Simon felt a rush of giddy terror. He was the only one in any position to fly the shuttle.

* * *

The floor _punched_ her in the nose.

It wasn't supposed to do that. Simon had tried to strap her in, but there was too much moving and too much shaking and _too much rape _and _**sparks running out of the engine **_like _flowing water_

_Terror_ poured out of Simon like a wild river, into _a river _and _**out**_ _of a river_

_- cut her down -_

The floor was cold. Cold _like a memory_. memory of _fire_, of **night** and _**torches **_and

_- but she's our -_

The Black pressed all around them, but _he wanted to paint the canvas golden_

_- so cut her the hell -_

She closed her eyes, feeling the cold and the pain and _the closing hunger _all **dancing inside** and _cut__ting_ into her brain . . . .

_- what does that make us?_

And she smiled.

* * *

He clambered up into the seat, mind racing. It was vaguely familiar, and he knew what most of the controls did. Coming from a Core planet, Simon had taken the usual courses on basic flight operations, so he could handle hovercars and small shuttles, and his medical training had included courses on piloting ambulances, so he wasn't completely lost. However, the configuration of the shuttle was different than a hovercraft or atmospheric shuttle, and the conditions were far from what he was trained for.

For one thing, he'd never had to worry about dodging mad space pirates while piloting an ambulance.

He had no idea where they were relative to the _Hemmingway_, or _Serenity_ - if _Serenity_ was even in range to pick them up. The wild escape from the Reavers, plus the maneuvering the _Hemmingway_ had pulled to put distance between them, had changed their relative positions. It didn't help that he'd been mostly unconscious during the trip to the Alliance ship in the first place.

"I'm lost," Simon muttered to himself, even as he turned the control stick in a hard maneuver that sent the shuttle careening sideways. _And, _he realized, _I probably shouldn't have pulled that hard._

He fought to bring the shuttle around, and aimed toward the asteroid belt. The thin line of drifting rocks was looming up ahead, much closer than he remembered it being before, and he gave the engines all the power that he could-

A powerful bang ran through the hull, and the shuttle shuddered and twisted.

With a crashing, gut-churning pulse of terror, Simon realized what had just happened: the Reaver ship had hit them with a magnetic grapple.

They were caught.

* * *

_"Ready?"_

"Just a sec . . . got it!"

_"On ten?"_

"On ten."

_"Okay, kids. Watch how I soar."_

* * *

Simon scrabbled for Book's pistol, clutching it in tight fingers.

"Too . . . late now," Book whispered, and Simon peered down into his bloodied face. He flashed back to Haven, barely six months ago, when he'd last seen the Shepherd like this: bloody, dying, and yet desperately peaceful. And Simon remembered how furiously he'd worked to save the dying holy man, his blood pouring over his fingers, his breath stilling twice and his furious attempts to resuscitate him.

"I'm not giving up on you," Simon said, steeling himself, and rose, moving to where River lay. He froze for a heartbeat as he saw her lying on the floor, and then knelt beside her.

"River," he breathed, rolling her over onto her back, cursing himself for not strapping her in correctly. There were a multitude of things he wanted to say at that moment, but his mouth went slack as he saw her . . . _smiling?_

"River?" he breathed.

"Time to go," she whispered, looking up at him with glazed, serene eyes.

The shuttle's proximity alert howled.

* * *

The Reaver ship's hydraulics whirled and hissed, reeling in the prey that it had found. It bore scars across its flanks from where laser beams and missiles had rent and torn its hull, but it was functional, and its crew - now only a couple dozen - were still hungry. The slavering jaws of the beast awaited soft, weak meat, to consume and break and defile.

The beast's eyes were locked so tightly on its prey that it never saw the ugly, gunmetal blob until it was right on top of them.

Were anyone who could appreciate the scene watching, they would have likened what happened next to a hippopotamus doing Olympic-level gymnastics.

It screamed down out of the asteroid belt, a wild ribbon of golden plasma leaking from its swollen aft. As it shot toward the Reaver vessel's desecrated hull, it suddenly spun in place, thrusters flipping and firing in a delicately timed sequence that flipped the vessel around so that the very end that was leaking plasma was leveled at the Reaver ship, less than half a kilometer away.

It shot down between the Reaver vessel and the fleeing shuttle trapped in its grasp, the thrusters firing and bringing it to a relative halt, matching the speeds of both ships with an ease that made the maneuver seem simple.

Then, the primary engine of the not-too-terrifically-good vessel _Serenity_ fired. Plasma erupted from its rear, in what a certain mercenary would later remark looked like "the prettiest fart I've ever looked at."

The golden emissions washed over the Reaver vessel, spreading across its hull, leaking into the rents and tears and battle damage scarring its skin. Viewports were blinded to opacity by the heat, and sensors were fried or scrambled by the wash of plasma spraying over the pirates' ship.

That same plasma spread over the grappling line, and while the cable was rated to survive reentry temperatures, the plasma released by _Serenity_ was much, much hotter. Metal flared, glowed, twisted, and then came apart, and with a snap that threw a young doctor off his feet, the shuttle was free.

_Serenity's_ thrusters roared again, speeding it up, as the Reaver ship banked and flew away, hopelessly blinded for a precious few seconds by the plasma wash.

Aboard the shuttle, Simon managed to stumble back into the cockpit, to see the most beautiful sight he could imagine: _Serenity_, floating just ahead and below them, the docking lights on its starboard shuttle dock blinking to guide him home.

* * *

"So, hon, what does that make us?" Hoban Washburne asked, looking back up at his wife as the shuttle clicked into place.

"A big damn husband," Zoë replied, kissing him on the cheek.

"Maybe we should start a club," Mal remarked, his expression sour, before turning and clattering his way out of the bridge.

"Yeah, we could have our own business cards," Wash added, brightening to the idea. "And cake! Big Damn Cake!"

Mal didn't respond, instead marching down the stairs running to the cargo bay. As he walked, a myriad rush of emotions flowed through him, his fingers tightening and relaxing and his jaw working. Anger and relief fought a vicious war in his brain as he walked down the steps, and he glanced up at movement as he stepped onto the catwalk in the bay. Jayne was waiting for him, moving along the metal grating with that same worried-doting look he'd had when Kaylee was shot or River had been hurt.

Kaylee was hurrying out onto the main floor, and Mal heard Zoë following him down the steps behind him.

Across the bay, standing outside her shuttle, black hair billowing in the lack of gravity, Inara watched. His eyes met hers, and he pulled away from her gaze almost as quickly.

The shuttle door hissed open, and Mal decided to let anger take over, and give the preacher a good piece of rage.

"What the hell were you thinking?" he yelled, pushing through the door past Jayne. "I told you-"

His words died as he saw Book lying on the floor, bleeding and gasping-

_Haven_

-and Simon was trying to get him up, while River lay on the floor, unmoving. For a heartbeat, he thought she was dead, but he caught her eyes, alive and awake-

"_Gorrammit_, stupid girl, what the hell-"

Jayne was shoving past him, even as Mal stepped forward, helping the doctor lift Book up, the anger melting like ice tossed at a star.

"How bad is he, Doc?" the captain asked, looking over Book's wounds, seeing dozens of cuts and scrapes that made all his own war wounds flare up again at just a glimpse.

"He's not good," Simon replied. "I may have to operate."

For his part, Jayne was crouching beside River, shaking her and muttering and calling her a half-dozen angry names as he scooped her up.

"Is River hurt?" Mal asked, seeing the wounds she'd suffered too.

"Just a paralytic," Simon said, his voice that quick, clinical tone one always associated with a medic in a life-or-death situation. "I need to get them both to the infirmary."

They passed over the threshold into the cargo bay, and weight ceased to have any meaning, making it easier for Mal to guide the battered, semi-conscious Shepherd.

"_Mal!" _Wash's voice sounded over the intercom, and the captain heard Kaylee's shocked exclamation as she saw what had happened to Book - which doubled when she saw River, cradled in Jayne's arms, a second later.

"Zoë, get them down there," Mal ordered, and then turned off his magboots and kicked off the wall. He shot down to the bottom of the bay and hit the deck, turning the boots back on and grabbing the intercom in one smooth motion.

"Wash, you got a reason you're yellin' my name like I'm on fire?"

"_Yeah, 'cause we're about to be," _he responded. _"Those Reavers are a bit ticked and they're gunning for us."_

"We burned their sensors, didn't we?" Mal asked, and Wash grunted.

"_They still have the good old Mark One Eyeball," _Wash replied, _"and their engine is still kicking. They're closing, tight on our butts."_

"Can't be more than a couple dozen Reavers on that boat," Mal said, and Wash laughed nervously.

"_Yeah, good thing we've got River back, she can deal with them pretty-"_

"River's hurt," Mal said, and Wash went silent for a moment.

"_Oh. _Oh_. Yeah. We're humped."_

"Get 'em off us," Mal ordered, "And I'll bake you a big damn cake myself."

_"I'd rather face the Reavers, sir," _Wash said, and Mal closed the com. He stopped for a heartbeat, exhaling, letting his mind run as he considered his options. He turned, looking around the cargo bay, and then, one of the most dangerous notions in the 'Verse happened.

Malcolm Reynolds had a plan.

* * *

"Set him down here," Simon ordered, his tone quick and clinical as he and Zoë moved Book into the infirmary. They brought Book in, strapping him down onto the main operating bed, while Jayne came in behind them with River cradled in his arms.

"_Gorram_ dumbass moonbrained girl," he was growling at her, but his tone was quiet and tinged with worry. Her eyes were open, but she was limp, just like when he'd pulled her out of Niska's ship, and he saw the blood and cuts and tears on her clothes and skin.

"Put River over there," Simon ordered, gesturing to the second bed, and began pulling off Book's dressings. Zoë brought over a case of surgical tools, and Simon went to work.

"She gonna be alright?" Jayne asked, strapping her down to keep her from drifting.

"She's been affected by a moderate paralytic," Simon said, not looking up as he started working on the most serious of the preacher's wounds, the stab that had gone clear through his stomach. Blood drifted out into the air from his wounds. "River's going to live, but I need to focus on Book."

There was movement at the infirmary's hatch, and Simon looked up, to see Inara and Kaylee at the entrance. For perhaps a second, he let the mixed look on Kaylee's face affect him: her joy at him being alive mixed with her horror at Book's wounds. He quashed them just as quickly.

"Inara, get me fifteen CC's of kalivarv, in a syringe," he ordered. She nodded and moved into the infirmary, heading for the drug cabinet.

"For River?" she asked, almost unnecessarily, and Simon nodded.

"Yes," he replied, and busied himself with Book's wounds. "Zoë, I'll need to go inside. Prep an anesthetic."

"On it," she replied. She his fingers worked to stem the bleeding and patch up the worst of the Shepherd's wounds, his mind worked quickly, evaluating the situation.

As injured as River was, that clinical part of his mind - the part the Captain had praised as his "criminal mastermind" brain - knew that if they were attacked by the Reavers again, they would need River in top form. And that was why Inara had a syringe filled with a universal counter-inhibitor to purge the paralytic in his sister's blood.

The only question was whether it would work in time.

"Done," Inara called back, and Simon spared a glance. Inara and Jayne were still in the room, the mercenary looming over River like a confused giant, while Inara floated beside the bed, pulling the empty syringe from River's arm.

"I need room," he said, and Inara nodded. She gently pushed Jayne's shoulder, and he looked up, almost annoyed, before Simon repeated himself, more forcefully. Jayne hesitated, and Simon knew he was reluctant to leave River in this state.

For some reason, Simon found that terribly distracting.

"Jayne, give the Doc room," came a call from the entrance, and the mercenary looked up. Mal stood at the hatch, and gestured quickly for him to leave, complete with his serious-angry-Captain glare. After another heartbeat, Jayne did so, followed a moment later by Inara.

"He gonna live, Doc?" Mal asked. Simon glanced over the wounds as he finished closing the worst injury.

"Yes," Simon replied after several seconds.

"I need Zoë," Mal continued. "Can you spare her?"

"No," Simon replied, not looking up. "I need an assistant, this is serious."

"Reavers are still after us, I need all my guns," Mal said. Simon hesitated for a heartbeat, his fingers still working as they addressed one of the rents in the Shepherd's chest.

"Leave me Inara," he said finally.

Zoë nodded and moved away, while Inara moved back into the infirmary to take her spot, pulling on a pair of gloves as approached the bed. As Zoë left, Simon paused, understanding exactly what Mal had just done.

He didn't have time to contemplate it, though. He immediately had Inara prep a fresh package of biofoam while he worked to remove a bullet lodged in the Shepherd's chest. Blood erupted from the wound, and he moved to seal the injury.

He could do this. He could save him. The only question was whether it would matter with the Reavers on their tails.

* * *

They clattered up onto the bridge, grabbing weapons as they walked through the mess. Zoë and Jayne were sliding pistols into holsters and sheathing blades, while Mal loaded his long rifle. He glanced behind them, to see Kaylee walking behind his gun hands, grabbing a couple of pistols, a mixture of determination and fear darkening her features.

Mal said nothing, instead moving up the corridor to the bridge. Wash's hands were gripping the controls, knuckles white as he weaved _Serenity_ along on the best evasive course he could manage under the circumstances.

"How long we got, Wash?" Mal asked as he entered the bridge.

"A few minutes, at best," he replied. "I'm trying to shake 'em, but-"

"Let 'em close," Mal ordered.

"What?" four voices responded in near-unison.

"Let 'em close, and open the bottom cargo bay doors a hair. Not enough to open all the way, just make 'em look damaged or such," he continued.

"Sir, what the hell are you-" Zoë was saying.

"Jayne, Zoë, set up on the port side catwalk," Mal continued before they could get any more words in. "Get ready to run back inside on my signal. Rig the doors to lock closed behind you."

Eyes stared back at him from all directions, except for Wash, who was still trying to dodge the Reavers.

"Sir, is your brain missing?" Zoë asked, and he shook his head.

"No, but I got a plan," he replied. "And we need to get working on it now, not a lot of time otherwise."

"I'm sure I'm not the only one wondering what the Captain's brilliant plan is in this case," Wash piped in. "I'd like to hear it - and maybe even implement it - before I get nibbled on by Reavers, please."

"Okay," Mal said, nodding. "Wash, got those doors opened yet?"

"Just a sec," he replied, fiddling with the controls.

"Okay, here's what's going to happen . . . ." He quickly laid it out for them, and inside of a minute the looks of confusion turned to understanding. Jayne even grinned, seeming to find the idea amusing.

"What about Simon and River? Or Book and 'Nara?" Kaylee asked.

"Reavers bust in they'll be right on top of them," Zoë added, and Jayne's face screwed right back up at that.

"I'm sure as hell not leaving Simon, or Book or River," Kaylee added, and that determined look finally seemed to conquer her fear. "We can't move 'em, so we gotta keep 'em safe."

"Right," Mal said. "But this is our only shot. Kaylee, get the lower hatch leading down to the bottom decks secured. Zoë, set up with Kaylee and watch the Doc's back. Only need me an' Jayne to pull this off anyhow."

"Understood," she said, nodding. She didn't mention the unspoken addendum: they didn't need to unnecessarily risk her child in a firefight, either.

"Doors are locked in place, Mal," Wash added. "I'm leaking some atmo, too. They'll be on that like sharks and blood."

"Good. Let's get to it, people," Mal ordered, and they started to move out of the bridge. As they did so, Jayne frowned.

"The hell's a shark?" he asked to no one in particular.

As if answering him, _Serenity_ shuddered, and a flash of panic entered Wash's voice.

"They just hit us! Magnetic grapple!"

"Everyone, get to your positions!" Mal shouted, and Jayne hopped to it, clutching Vera tightly in his mighty hands as he hurried toward the stairs.

* * *

Mal stood on the starboard catwalk over looking the bay, crouched behind the railing with his rifle in hand. He tensed, waiting, glad for the magnetic boots that kept him locked in place. He could feel the ship shuddering as the Reavers hauled it in.

"Wash, talk to me," Mal called over the radio.

_"They're latching onto the bottom," _the pilot reported, his voice a tiny bit more relieved than it had been before. _"They're taking the bait."_

"This gonna work?" Jayne asked, mimicking Mal on the opposite side of the bay. He stood in front of the door that ran up to _Serenity's_ bridge, Vera balanced on the edge of the catwalk's railing.

"You ever known one of my plans not to?" Mal asked.

"You seriously want me to answer that?" Jayne replied.

_"Bottom hatch locked," _Zoë reported.

"Roger that. You an' Kaylee keep 'em clear if they don't take the bait."

"And if they don't?" Jayne asked.

"Then either I'll be disappointed in you, Jayne, or these will be very unusual Reavers."

_"They're reeling us in," _Wash reported. _"Got a tube poking straight toward our belly. Captain, the imagery I'm seeing here is not conducive to either my or Zoë's future matrimonial happiness."_

"Acknowledged. Turn off the cameras if you feel inadequate, Wash," Mal ordered.

_"Oh, I'm not jealous in the slightest, its just-"_

"You see any rocks you like out there?" Mal interrupted before they could get into an argument.

_"A couple," _the pilot replied. _"Altering course. Get ready for impact in three."_

"We'll have Reavers out our _pi gu _by then," Jayne muttered.

_"Jayne," _Zoë called over the radio. _"Quit bitching. You'll scare the women."_

_Serenity_ shuddered again, and a deep _thrumming_ sound filled the bay.

_"They're latched," _Wash reported. _"They've already forced the bay doors open."_

"Everyone, get ready," Mal said. "This is it."

Several seconds passed, they could hear noises "below" the ship, as the Reavers went to work on the doors in the center of the bay's floor. A spark of light shot up through the cracks.

"Wash, now."

The bay doors suddenly opened, swinging up and out, and a gaggle of Reavers who had been crammed into the airlock with welding tools was suddenly visible, looking around in momentary confusion.

Mal and Jayne opened up. Vera unloaded, thundering out high-caliber rounds, while Mal's smaller rifle thumped against his shoulder as he picked out targets. Reavers twisted, hissed, roared, and erupted as rounds punched through their mismatched armor and bodies. Jayne would have fired a grenade into the mass of the enemy, but the wiring for the bay's airlock was visible, and blowing that apart would have left the bay exposed to vacuum and thus unusable until they hit atmo.

The sudden casualties failed to dissuade the Reavers, however. In fact, the blood flying around them seemed to make them even more frenzied, and they leapt up out of the airlock, screaming and howling, the light reflecting off glistening skin and metal piercings.

At least four Reavers were dead by the time they scrambled up, and then discovered their next hurdle: _Serenity's_ lack of gravity. The Reavers suddenly found themselves floundering in the air as they leapt up into the ship, and that made them easy targets for Mal and Jayne. The pair scythed fire across the bay, picking off several more Reavers. Mal paused to change magazines, and glanced across the room to where Jayne was crouched, to see an unusual grin on the mercenary's face. That gave him a moment's pause; Jayne was normally dead serious in combat, especially against Reavers.

Bullets rang off the catwalk, reminding Mal where his attention needed to stay. Reavers with rifles and machineguns were among the creatures boiling up into the bay, and were blazing away at Mal and Jayne. Though the pirates' aim wasn't anything spectacular, and was ruined by the fact that they were floating wildly around the bay in zero gravity, they were still hammering around Mal and Jayne all too closely.

Then, a couple of Reavers had managed to reach the walls or catwalks, and were grabbing on or kicking off.

"Fall back, Jayne!" Mal yelled, and started firing as he backed into the doorway behind him. The captain wasn't too sure whether he'd killed any more of the Reavers, but he knew it didn't matter. He stepped inside the stairwell leading up to the crew corridor, and then slammed the door shut. He threw the locking bar down.

"Jayne, you okay?"

_"Yeah, cap'n," _Jayne replied, and then there was another burst of gunfire over the radio. A couple seconds later, the door slammed shut on his end. _"Locked and cocked."_

"Zoë?"

_"They're not even bothering the door on this end," _she replied. A second later, the door in front of Mal began to hammer and ring as the Reavers began pounding on it.

_"Can I hit it, Mal?" _Wash asked over the radio.

"Give 'em a few seconds to all get in, Wash," Mal ordered, clattering up the stairs toward the bridge. A moment later, he was walking up into the cockpit, where Jayne was already waiting, still holding Vera and looking like the whole 'Verse owed him money.

"Jayne, any reason you lookin' so constipated?" Mal asked, and the mercenary looked, before shaking his head.

"Didn't get enough of 'em," he replied.

"You were enjoying that, I take it?" Mal asked, and the mercenary nodded grimly.

"Mal, I'm getting nervous with that many-" Wash piped in.

"Hit it," Mal replied, and Wash's fingers played over the controls.

Down in the cargo bay, as many as thirty Reavers were still alive, all that had managed to pile onto their ship when they'd learned of the escaping shuttle. The ship itself was practically empty now, with all but the vessel's pilots answering the call for meat and prey. They were just starting to bring up door-breaching equipment when another shudder ran through the bay, followed by the sudden wailing of alarms.

Down at the bottom of the bay, opposite the door Mal had taken, the main cargo bay doors opened to the Black.

From that point, physics took over. A few of the Reavers managed to grab onto catwalks, railings, or the netting binding the cargo in place before the sudden blast of escaping air lifted them up and hauled them toward the door with inexorable force. Many of the Reavers were still in mid-air when the doors opened, and were not so lucky.

The ones who found purchase held on while their comrades were sucked out of the bay and cast out into the Black. Within a matter of seconds, all the air had flown out of the cargo bay, and with it went the force dragging on the surviving Reavers, who were quickly discovering another issue: the lack of air in the chamber, and their equal lack of pressure suits.

Their hands scrabbled on the doors as they tried to force them open, gasping for breath and their vision slowly going dark. Neither Wash nor Mal, nor any of _Serenity's_ crew were in any mood to give the insane creatures what they wanted. A very small number of Reavers managed to get back down to the floor of the bay and into the docking tube leading back to the safety of their own vessel.

"Wash, you got it?" Mal asked, and Wash grinned, gunning _Serenity's_ engines.

The Reavers had barely gotten to the refuge of their own rickety, damaged vessel when _Serenity_ flew over a large asteroid, dashing the pirate ship against its surface. The Firefly shuddered as the vessel was torn loose, the Reaver craft smashed to half its length.

The debris would drift for seventeen more hours before the victorious _Hemmingway's_ gunships would finally locate and obliterate it. By that time, _Serenity_ was long gone, her main engines repaired to working order and sending the battered but very alive Firefly to the nearest repair facility.

Wash exhaled, the breath escaping in a long, drawn out sigh of giddy relief, and he settled back into his chair.

"They're off us," he said. "We're good." Wash glanced back up toward Mal. "We're good, right?"

Mal replied by dropping into the copilot's chair, and letting it all go as he finally, gloriously relaxed.

"We're still flying, aren't we?" he asked, and Wash nodded. "Then we're _very_ good."

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**For the most terrifying creatures in the 'Verse, the Reavers never got the memo that space suits might be useful for boarding hostile ships where they can just pump out the atmosphere. But then, no one said Reavers were terribly sane, either, so....

For anyone wondering, a few minor things that happened in this chapter will be followed up on in the epilogue, as well as some of the other plot threads brought up over the course of this arc. But aside from that, all that's left of the Adrift arc is the epilogue.

Until next chapter . . . . .


	37. Adrift: Epilogue: Starlight

_**Epilogue: Starlight**_

_It was quiet, but not the chilling kind of quiet that signaled the ship's engine was out or atmo processor was blown. It was the peaceful quiet of a ship cruising through the Verse on its own, no one chasing it, no one fighting or dying, just . . . quiet. The only cause for excitement was the occasional sudden pull downward when the artificial gravity would try kicking in, and though he couldn't hear it, the quiet cursing of his mechanic as she tried to get the systems working normally._

_He walk-crawled down the catwalk, pulling himself hand-over-hand along the railing, having ditched the space suit some hours ago. He'd given up the magboots that had come with it, but he was better off being out of the bulky outfit and back in normal clothes._

_He was nearing the shuttle, a myriad of emotions fighting through him at that point in existence. There was anger, certainly, but a mish-mash of everything else too, and he wasn't sure why he was coming here, except possibly to sort those feelings out. _

_The air outside her shuttle was still tinged with the usual cloying touch of incense. He paused to take a breath of that sweet air outside, and rapped on the door._

_There was no answer, so Mal did his usual and slid the door open._

_The reassertion of gravity was unsettling to a gut that had been churning the last twenty-four hours on none. He staggered into the shuttle, nose flaring with the biting sweetness of the fragrance of the chamber and eyes caressed by the red velvet hues and black drapes._

_The first thing he focused on was the familiar: a simple, elegant pistol lying on the table by her couch, beside her longbow and that short, straight blade she'd taken to. The familiar sights of weapons set order to the chaotic emotions he was feeling, which was good, because she was staring right at him._

_"Captain," Inara spoke._

* * *

He was alive.

White light stung his eyelids as he laid back, rising up into the world of the living. The pain he'd remembered, the fear in the Doctor's voice as they'd been captured, was still fresh in his mind, but flowed back, receding like a tide.

He blinked through the whiteness, and Shepherd Book looked up into a pair of faces, one satisfied, other a mixture of relief and hardness.

"I suppose we made it?" he asked, and the hard face nodded.

"That we did," Mal replied.

"No one else hurt?" he asked.

"Aside from you, no," Simon said, shaking his head.

"River?"

"I'm okay."

Book looked across the room, past Simon's form, to see River sitting on the bed against the wall. Her arms and legs were bandaged, and a angry welt traced below her eye, but she was smiling, if only a little, and that cheered the old man's heart. He laid back, closing his eyes.

"Good."

A few moments passed, and he sensed movement. His eyes opened again, and the old preacher saw Simon had moved away, across the infirmary, leaving him alone with Mal, relatively speaking. The Captain seemed to be thinking, and finally leaned over him.

"I told you what we was gonna do, preacher," Mal said, pulling up a chair. It wasn't until then that Book realized the artificial gravity was working again. "We weren't going to risk everyone to save the Doc on some wild fool chance like you were cooking up."

"Wouldn't be the first mistake you've made," Book replied, meeting Mal's eyes. He rose up a little bit on his elbows, one hand hitting the controls for the bed to raise up the upper half to bring him even with Mal.

Their gazes met, long and hard, neither man yielding for the longest while.

Mal finally broke the stare, looking across the room, toward River, and then back toward Simon. Both the Tams were watching the exchange intently, and Book noted a tenseness in River's posture - as though she was prepared to spring up in case something went awry.

Mal closed his eyes for a second, leaning back a bit in his chair, and then returned to staring at Book.

"Leastway I see it," he said, "I'm not gonna blame River none for wanting to protect her brother. And if I can't bring myself to blame her, I can't well hold you for doing what you felt was right. Especially since I'm not sure what you did wasn't right my own self."

The silence following that was deafening. It took Book a moment to realize Simon had stopped moving about.

"A moment before you made off with the Doc, I realized what I owed my crew," he said. "I _should _have done all I could to save the Doc."

Mal turned and looked across the infirmary toward Simon. There was a moments' silence, and Mal nodded to the Doctor, before rising and walking out of the infirmary, coat whispering behind him.

* * *

_That one word stung worse than anything else she could have said, and he let his best indignant expression creep over his face._

_Distantly, he wondered if that was the exact intention she'd had._

_He stared back at Inara for a moment, the Companion dressed in one of her more conservative outfits, and felt a mental fencing match begin as they locked eyes._

_"Kaylee's working on getting the gravity back to normal," he said. "Once we've got that and the main engine running, we'll be heading on."_

_"That's good to hear," she said, nodding. An awkward silence hung in the air for a few seconds. He wasn't sure what to say, but he knew that it would be a mistake to back off and walk right out through that hatch. They had to air this out._

_"Doc says the Shepherd's doing good," Mal added. "He'll come around in a couple hours once the meds wear off."_

_"And what then?" Inara asked._

_Yeah. That was a good question. What would happen then, when Mal got to look the old man dead in the eye after he risked all their lives like that?_

_"We're going to have ourselves a lengthy discussion," Mal said. She stared back, their eyes locking._

_"Well, if you do talk with him, I hope you do it with your mouth and not your fists," she said, her words chilled._

_"I'm not gonna . . . . " Mal paused, closing his eyes. He sensed movement, and opened them again to see her rise from the red couch. He sighed, and came out with it._

_"I was going for the Shepherd's notion," Mal said, meeting her dark eyes. _

_There was a span of silence stretching between them, as he let her process that. For Inara's part, she didn't move, or even give off the faintest sign of reaction, but he knew she was thinking over those words._

_"And if you'd just trusted me . . . ." he continued, but was cut off._

_"Trust you?" she said, the accusation growing. "Why _should_ I have?"_

* * *

Gravity was back on. That made sitting easier.

"That one was close," Zoë said, settling back into Wash's lap. He found it hard to lean back, considering that he was sitting on the bench in the dining room, so instead he simply leaned forward into his wife. Somehow, despite all the sweat and chaos and blood, her hair still smelled wonderful, and her butt was right on top of . . . .

Yes, he concluded. Gravity was very nice.

"Nah. I think the Captain had a good plan," Wash replied, angling the spoon in one hand around Zoë's head toward his mouth, the other arm wrapped around her waist.

"That's a chilling concept," Zoë commented, frowning. Wash couldn't help but nod as he slipped the spoon into his mouth, and moaned quietly through closed teeth.

"Baby, why don't you cook more?" he asked, after swallowing. "Wife soup is the most delicious thing I've had in weeks."

"Jayne's better," she replied.

"I don't like the idea of eating anything Jayne has touched," Wash mused, trying to get at the bowl again.

"Could be worse," Zoë said. "Captain could be cooking."

"He's still threatening to make me a cake," the husband grunted, and the wife chuckled.

"Probably just kidding, Wash," she said, reaching back and running a hand through his hair.

"Did you finish the checkup?" Wash asked after swallowing the next spoonful. His hand rose up and rubbed her belly, where their child was growing. "I mean, before the whole stabbing thing."

"Yes, I did," Zoë said, leaning back even further into him, to the point where Wash found her curls interfering with any further soup-eating. That was a decent tradeoff, he figured.

"And?"

"Nothing different," she replied. "Our little one is coming along good."

A few minutes passed, as Wash continued eating and Zoe continued enjoying his presence, and both made the usual wordless noises associated with that state of being. However, as time passed, Wash knew he was going to have to bring up what had happened earlier, or at least, one specific part of it. He steeled himself, getting read for one hell of an argument, and spoke.

"Hon," Wash said, frowning. "When Mal made that call earlier, you went with him."

"Yes," she replied, and he felt her tense up against him. "I agreed with him."

"You thought we should have let-" She turned in his lap, looking directly back at her husband.

"It was a hard call," she cut Wash off. "Listen. It was . . . Mal made a choice. I didn't like it, but I agreed with his reasons." She paused. Wash was about to speak again when she continued. "Didn't mean I wasn't glad when the preacher made his own choice."

The mess was filled with the thrumming of running electricity and the distant rumble of the engines. Wash's fingers played along the smooth metal of the spoon, flipping and churning the thick soup.

So, that was it? He'd expected a bit more conflict, some yelling and throwing about of things, but . . . well, he wasn't going to argue with it.

"Its done now," he said.

"Yeah, its done," Zoë replied, and leaned her head in, resting her forehead against his. He reached up around her shoulders, holding her against him, and they stayed that way for a while, husband and wife letting the stress of one insane day roll off them together.

* * *

_That hit him like a punch in the gut. And she followed through just as fast._

_"Your duty is to your crew, but you chose to let Simon die?"_

_"One person, or eight?" Mal countered. "What do you think I should choose, Inara?"_

_"What answer did you choose?" she replied, and he stopped in the middle of his countercharge._

_"I made the decision I trusted Malcolm Reynolds to make," Inara said, taking a step closer, to the point where he could feel her body heat. "I made a choice we all trusted _you_ to make."_

_He was verbally fencing with an expert, and Mal knew he had just been deftly skewered._

_"This crew is family, Mal," she whispered, reaching up to touch his shoulder. "We'd die for each other."_

_"Except Jayne," he added, and she nodded, managing a slight smile._

_"Yes. Except Jayne." She looked down for a moment, before continuing. "And still, even he would . . . none of us are afraid, Mal."_

_"I didn't suggest you were," he said._

_"But you are."_

* * *

Book wasn't sure how long it was until he'd woken up again, but when he did so, it was to the smell of food. He opened his eyes, his dried mouth watering a bit at the smell - what seemed like some form of processed protein mixed with beef flavoring, he guessed - and looked around the infirmary. He felt a distant pain in his stomach and legs, but it was just an echo of what he'd felt when he'd been sliced open.

River was up, sitting on her bed, a bowl in hand and eating, and a second one sat beside her. Simon was next to her, sorting through a shelf of drugs and speaking quietly to her. As soon as she saw the Shepherd start moving, though, she set her bowl down and picked up the other, moving by his side.

"Thank you," Book offered, taking the bowl in hands that were shaking, just a little bit, from blood loss. Simon glanced up, and walked by his side as the preacher took a bite, his stomach suddenly protesting loudly that it was empty.

"How are you feeling?" the doctor asked.

"Better," both River and Book answered at the same time. Her eyes widened a hair, and a bout of embarrassment spread over her features.

"I'm not in any pain," Book said after taking another bite. "A lot better, now." He moved his legs, and found them responsive, if aching from the beating they'd taken and the lengthy horizontal stay.

"That's good to hear," Simon said, nodding. "I think you should be safe to return to your room for some real rest." He smiled toward his sister. "River insisted I bring you something to eat. She said you'd both need something after everything we went through today."

"I did, thank you," Book said, once again toward River, and finished the bowl off. There hadn't been a whole lot of food in it, but the protein tended to be filling, if nothing else. Book set the bowl down and tried sitting up, which he did with no trouble, and Simon backed away when he slung his legs around off the bed, and slowly stood.

"Getting too old for this," the Shepherd said, feeling his back popping as he shakily stood, and then sat back down.

"You're healthier than most of the crew," Simon said, shrugging, and went back across the room to resume inspecting his equipment. As he started moving, however, the doctor noticed someone outside the infirmary, and broke off to walk outside.

River hovered by Book's side, uncertainty on her features, and her fingers interlaced, as if she was trying to say something.

"What is it?" Book asked, smiling to put her at ease. She was silent for a moment.

"Thank you," she said suddenly, and his smile grew. He reached up and grasped the girl's shoulder.

"I did what anyone should have done," he replied. "And you're welcome." She slowly smiled back, her face brightening, and she pulled the old Shepherd into a hug. Without warning, she rose and kissed him on the forehead, the same way a young girl would kiss her grandfather.

When she stepped back, the relieved happiness he saw on her face was genuine, but it faded a little bit as she glanced out the door to the infirmary, before looking back to him, that uncertainty reappearing.

"Later," she said, her words quiet. "We have to talk." He frowned but he understood.

"About that," he said, and she nodded. "Of course."

A moment later, the smile reappeared, and she picked up her bowl of protein.

"You're still hungry. Want the rest of mine?" she offered.

As River and Book were talking, Simon stepped outside the infirmary, and found himself running straight into Kaylee.

For a moment, she stared at him, and he stared right back, not sure what to say.

Then, she grabbed him, pulled him into a tight hug, and kissed him hard on the lips. It took a couple seconds for his own hands to move up and pull her into his chest, and she reciprocated, arms cinching tight around his waist. He wasn't sure how much time passed, but when they finally broke for breath, the young doctor felt a thousand times better.

They peered into each others' eyes, just inches apart, and he could see the worry, the redness, and the stains of dried tears on her face.

"Don't do that again," she said, her voice almost breaking. hew as at a loss to reply. "Don't do it. If you die, I might . . . I might have to hurt you, Simon."

He finally managed a smile, even as she had a half-sob, half-laugh of happiness, and he kissed her again, this one less desperate and forceful, but no less affectionate.

"Its okay," he whispered, once they'd broken. "I promise . . I promise I'll try very hard not to die anymore."

"Good," she said.

She looked past him, and he heard movement, and turned to see Book limping out of the infirmary, with River beside him and helping him stand. The doctor let Kaylee go and took a step toward them to assist, but the Shepherd raised his hand.

"I'm fine," he assured Simon. "I can make it to my room."

"Are you sure?" Simon asked. Book smiled, his expression weary but content., and River gave her brother her own tired grin.

"We can make it," she added, and started helping Book along. Simon hovered, uncertain, but then River glanced back.

"Kaylee," she said. "Simon needs to know how happy you are that he's not hurt."

"I am," she said, and touched his shoulder. "I really am, no matter how-"

"No," River said, frowning and shaking her head. "_Tell_ him how _happy_ you are." She gestured with her head at each emphasized word.

"_Oooooh_," the mechanic said, understanding.

The touch on Simon's shoulder became a grab, and that became a pull, and the young doctor realized what River meant as Kaylee hauled him toward the stairs.

* * *

_A heavy weight of silence laid across his shoulders, as they stared at each other. At length, she finally spoke again._

_"Sometimes I worry you've become too practical," she said. "That you lose what you are while trying to protect what you have."_

_"'Nara, I . . . ." Mal said, and closed his eyes, looking away. _

_He debated what to say. A hundred dead faces paraded before him. Bendis. Tracy. Nandi. Mr. Universe. The slack jaws of Miranda. The terrified look of that mercenary. The surrendering Alliance trooper on Haven. The Reaver-tortured kid on the derelict. Faces he'd lost or taken, directly or not, but all weighing down on him._

_And then theirs. Jayne, lost and confused after Higgins' Moon. Kaylee, forlorn and distant as she stared at Serenity's inert engine. The Doc, dying from a gunshot wound to the gut. Zoe, shot and cut up on the floor beside Simon and Jayne. Book, a bullet wound in his shoulder and bleeding to death next to a cattle corral. Wash and River, both on their last legs after being tortured near to death._

_Yes. She was right. He was afraid. _

_"What do you think I am, 'Nara?" Mal asked, quietly._

_She answered by looking around the shuttle, and then toward the door. _

_"I already answered that not too long ago, Mal."_

_Mal slowly nodded, understanding her meaning._

_"You're part of all of us," she continued. "You're the one keeping us flying. Whether we'll all admit it or not." She raised her hands to his jaw, and he looked her square in the eyes._

_"We trust you to lead us the right way."_

_And that was it. That was why she'd gone behind his back. She wasn't trying to tear him down, he realized. She was just trying to do what he _should_ have been doing. _

_The right thing wasn't always the smart thing. Shepherd Book understood that. Hell, wasn't that why he went for Miranda in the first place?_

_"_Gorram_ it," Mal whispered, and her expression bunched up in confusion._

_"What's wrong?"_

_"Damn preacher is still teaching me even when he's not," Mal muttered, shaking his head. He looked back up to her._

_"What are you going to do now?" she asked._

_"Like I said," Mal replied. "Have a talk with him." He turned toward the shuttle door, stopping at the entrance, and looked back toward her. "Inara, little as I am to admit it . . . you did right." A heartbeat._

_"Thanks."_

_Before she could say anything in reply, he was gone._

* * *

He hauled himself up out of his bunk, grunting as he did so, trying to chase away the cobwebs of an all-too-short nap. Jayne clambered up into the crew corridor, shaking his head, and resolved to get a cup of caffeine right off.

The boat was quiet. Everyone was exhausted after that last narrow escape, and most of the crew had bedded down, Kaylee dragging the Doc off to her bunk and Wash and Zoe retiring to theirs. Of course, that meant he'd gotten pulled for watch duty while everyone else was sleeping. Yay.

No one ever appreciated the hard work he put in, sometimes.

Jayne walked into the darkened mess, rubbing his eyes as he did so, and that let him get halfway across the room toward the cabinets before he realized he wasn't alone. He paused, frowned, and scowled.

"The hell you doin'?" he asked.

River was lying on her back on the table, head resting on a cushion she'd apparently stolen from the sitting area behind the kitchen. The few knick-knacks that had been on the table were stacked neatly on the bench beside her. Her eyes were turned toward the ceiling, and she was staring upwards with a look of silly contentment.

"Stargazing," she replied, and that made Jayne's curious scowl deepen. He followed the line of her eyes, and saw she wasn't staring at the ceiling, but at the window in the top of the dining room, and the Black beyond.

"Hm," he replied, and went back to getting his cup of caffeine. He started up the pot, the metal clinking loudly in the kitchen, and the girl frowned.

"Shhh," she hissed, and he sneered back at her, loudly smacking the pot down on the counter. She glared daggers at him, but then went back to her stargazing. After a few minutes, the pot of caffeine finished, the smell of it filling the mess, and he poured himself a cup.

"Want some?" he asked her, walking back around toward the table. She shook her head, and he sat down beside her, steam wavering over her head. Her eyes flicked back and forth as they peered out the window, watching the slowly passing starscape outside with every sign of interest.

"You like stars?" he asked, sipping his drink and enjoying the hot, stiff taste.

"Yes," she replied, and one of her hands rose up toward the window, fingers outstretched as if she wanted to pluck them from the Black. "Simon won't let me go outside where I can hear them."

"Uh, yeah," Jayne said, frowning. "Need a spacesuit an' such for that." She nodded, her fingers waving slowly in the air.

This close, he saw one of the gashes on her arm, still fresh and pink, and that darkened his mood a bit. Her arm slowly dipped, dropping and folding over her stomach.

"You enjoyed it," she said abruptly, and he blinked.

"Enjoyed what?"

"Killing Reavers."

He was silent on that for a moment, and her head rose, eyes fixing him.

"Yeah," he admitted, nodding and sipping. "It felt good."

"Why?" she asked. "They scare you."

"Ain't nothin' scares me," Jayne replied, eyebrows bunching up in annoyance. "I just get put out by folks ain't civilized." She kept staring at him, and he realized he hadn't answered her question.

Fact was . . . .

"'Cause they hurt you," he said, straightforward and honest, and remembered the last time he'd seen her hurt like she'd been today, and how that had brought up the _red_. And how the _red_ had been creeping into him when he'd been gunning down the Reavers, until Mal's voice had called him back to his senses.

She peered back at him, and her jaw worked, lips pressing together. After a few seconds, River laid her head back down looked up toward the stars, fingers wrapping around each other.

_Shit, _he realized. She was remembering. Better get her mind off it, but how would he . . . .

Jayne reached back into his pants pocket, remembering what he'd found in the infirmary earlier. He pulled the sheet of paper River had torn out of her drawing pad and unfolded it.

"Hey, girl," he grunted. "What's this?"

River's head rose again, and her eyes focused on the paper and the face drawn on it. She reached up and took it, looking at the half-finished figure: a man's face, young, narrow, with light hair. Dagger-like features, large eyes, and a serious look on the set of his jaw. Her fingers traced the edges of the picture, and ran down the kanji on the side.

"I couldn't read that, looked Japanese," Jayne said, shrugging.

"Eeko," she whispered.

"Huh?"

"Just an echo," she clarified, her words a bit louder. He watched her eyes, seeing a sense of recognition in her features, and something else, something he hadn't expected to see in _her_ of all people: nostalgia.

"Who is he?" Jayne asked, reaching for the paper. What happened next caught him off-balance.

She snatched the paper away from him, a scowl appearing on her face, and she balled up the sheet. Her whole body pivoted, a single graceful motion of her legs that spun her around off the table, and River stood. She stepped around the table toward the kitchen and opened the incinerator, and shoved the paper inside.

"He's nobody," she said, her voice flat, and she slammed the incinerator door shut.

She stood there for a moment, watching the machine as it went to work silently, and then turned to face Jayne, catching his perplexed look.

"Nobody," she whispered, almost to herself. Then she was pushing past Jayne and hurrying toward the rear corridor. He rose, about to call after the crazy girl, but she was already gone.

"The hell?" he asked, confused. After a few seconds, he sat back down, and took another sip of his caffeine, wondering what that had been about.

* * *

They flowed past, a slow, smooth ocean of glittering lights and pure darkness. He settled into the pilot's chair, watching the vast, beautiful starscape drift along, only half a mind to the controls.

It had been a long, _long_ time since Malcolm Reynolds appreciated the Black.

"It sure is peaceful."

Mal didn't jump; he'd sensed the other man's presence a while ago at the entrance to the bridge.

"Yeah, it is," Mal said, glancing back toward Book. The preacher limped into the room, shirt bulging from the bandages underneath much of his body. "You hurtin' any?"

"A little," Book replied, but from the sound of his voice it seemed like he was hurting plenty more than he let on. The Shepherd crossed the bridge and settled into the copilot's chair, with some obvious signs of relief.

"Care for some company?" the old man asked, and Mal shrugged.

"Oftentimes I got Albatross sittin' watch up here with me," Mal said, "When she can't sleep."

Book nodded, and went silent for a moment. There was a pause in the air, an anticipatory awkwardness.

"Wouldn't think you'd care for my company, Captain," Book finally said.

Another long, heavy pause filled the bridge as the Captain considered his response. It didn't take that long, actually, as every thought he had kept looping back to Inara's words, and the simple facts of life out this far.

"Jayne told me something, a little ways back, just after Miranda," Mal said. "He said we got enough enemies in the 'Verse as it was without tearing up on each other. Said it would be best if we let bygones be such, 'cause we wasn't gonna work if we were growling at each other all the time."

"An unusually thoughtful notion, coming from him," Book mused, and Mal nodded.

"Don't make it less the truth," Mal replied. "I'm left wondering where he got the idea from."

Silence once more reigned over the bridge, but it was not awkward this time. It seemed more . . . _welcome_. In a few words, without saying anything at all, the two men understood one another, and it was all past them.

Book peered out into the Black spiraling past on its languorous journey, and the Captain leaned back in his chair, a wistful smile on his face. The Shepherd noticed it, and frowned, curious.

"What is it?" he asked, and Mal looked back toward him.

"Hm?"

"What's so amusing?"

"Nothing," Mal replied, shaking his head, and peering back out at the stars before him, appreciating just how pretty they were as they drifted along.

"Still flying, is all."

* * *

The _Hemmingway_ was a mess.

Forty-seven crew dead. Three times that injured. Thankfully, the Reavers hadn't had time to perform their craft on the injured, as they had been too busy fighting to survive, especially when nearly a quarter of their number had been killed in one stretch of corridor by a pair of blade-wielding killers and marine fire support.

For Captain Earnest Townsend, however, the battle wasn't over yet. He'd seen off the Reavers, but now he had to fight a worse foe: paperwork.

Almost the entire time since they'd cleared the ship of the Reavers had been spent coordinating the repair efforts on the already run-down frigate, and with the crews reduced to skeleton levels, that made things even harder. Still, as stressed and overwhelmed as he was, Townsend was glad for any reprieve, and one showed up a week after the battle aboard a small, light, fast-moving interstellar yacht built for speed, range, and not much else.

What made things a little more worrisome was the visitor's Vermillion-level security clearance.

"I apologize for keeping you waiting," Townsend said, stepping into the ready room beside his bridge a couple hours after the yacht had docked. The young man nodded, rising, and smiled, his face reflected in the polished walls and glossy tabletop.

"That's perfectly fine, captain," he said. "Out here, we're far enough out that there's little sanity in raising a fuss over waiting around for such a short time. Especially in light of what your crew has done."

"Thank you," the captain said, and they both took a seat. The first impression he got of the man was obvious youth: he seemed barely into his mid-twenties, though modern medical technology meant that a man could look a third his age without much difficulty. He was clad in a simple, tight gray suit and pants, his body slender and stocky, with pale blond hair and a face that reminded him of a knife: narrow and sharp. Wide blue eyes peered back at him, and a smile seemed to sit perpetually on his lips.

"I understand they're considering you for the Londinium Crest of Valor," the man mused, still grinning. "Destroying an entire Reaver flotilla by yourself? Impressive."

"Commander Pressly and the marines did most of the work," Townsend said, modest as usual. "I just shot a few animals and cleaned up the mess."

"Indeed," the man said, looking down at his datapad, consulting something. "I'm actually here in regards to that incident. Or rather, events happening parallel to that incident."

"You mean the other person with your clearance level," Townsend said, and the man nodded, his smile widening.

"Indeed," he replied.

"Are you oversight? Navy Intelligence?" Townsend asked, and the young man shook his head, chuckling.

"Nothing so cloak-and-dagger," he said. "I was actually alerted by your report, where you mentioned the individual in question was using a . . . Firefly-class transport? And seeking medical aid? Is that right?"

"Yes," the captain said, nodding. "He said he was in command of a Firefly. The shuttle he was using checked out, and his ship's medic had been injured in an accident."

"And you didn't probe any further when you saw his clearance level," the pale-haired man mused, and Townsend nodded.

"Not cleared to even know his name," the captain said, chuckling. "I didn't want to ask any questions."

"But you followed procedure, yes? You took detailed medical scans of the patient he brought on board? And everything checked out?"

"We did," Townsend said, frowning. "Unfortunately, we don't have any sensor or medical records from that time," he admitted. The young man frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"We're still trying to figure that out," Townsend said, shaking his head. "Somehow, all our sensor data and internal records relating to the incident were corrupted or deleted, and all long-range outgoing comm traffic during that time was squelched, so we didn't get a chance to compare the patient's biometrics to the sector databases. And somehow, all the tissue and blood samples were fed into the auto-incinerators. By the time our comms came back online, the records were lost."

"Sabotage?" the young man asked, his voice thoughtful. "Or combat damage?"

"Data loss was very specific," Townsend replied. "I think someone deliberately deleted all the records, though that would require root or command level access, and logs were deleted after the group left the ship, which means someone had to have ordered the ship's computer to delete the records up to a certain timestamp."

The young man looked away for a moment, nodding, and Townsend got the impression he understood what was going on, but if he knew anything, he wasn't talking.

"So," the man said, his tone disappointed. "You have no records of what happened on the ship." It wasn't a question.

"None," Captain Townsend replied, shaking his head. "But, I'm pretty certain that the woman who was with the old man who was behind it."

"Woman?" asked the pale-haired youth, eyebrows rising, and Townsend nodded.

"There were three," he said. "The old man, the young man who they said was a doctor or medic, and a girl. She couldn't have been past twenty."

"What did she look like?" the youth said, leaning forward, and Townsend noticed something different in his tone and posture. Before, he had been sitting straight, his voice calm and clinical. Now, there was something else: anticipation, and hunger.

"Small, slender, dark hair, very pale skin," Townsend said. "I didn't get a very good look at her, but she seemed familiar. And she fought like . . . like nothing I've ever seen before. One of my men who encountered her put up a report saying she was like an 'angel of death.'"

The pale-haired, finely featured young man stared at Townsend for a second, and then picked up his datapad. He put in a few keystrokes, and a moment later, the printer beside the ready room entrance hissed and produced a sheet of paper. The man retrieved it and set it down in front of Townsend.

"Did she look like this?" he asked, his voice sounding almost . . . _hopeful_.

"Yes," the captain breathed, the moment he saw the picture. It _was_ her. But her eyes, her face, they were slack, empty. If he didn't know better, he'd say he was looking at a corpse, with all of her features dead and blank. But there was no doubt about it. "That's her."

He looked up, and saw a strange mixture of exultation and apprehension on the other man's face. Townsend watched as he reached down, picking up the printout of her empty features, and stared at it for a few seconds.

"What's this all about?" he asked. "And who are you? What's going on here?"

"The first and third questions, I can't answer," the young man said, and looked up at Townsend, smiling at him. "As for the second, I don't have name or rank. But for the purposes of this interview, you can call me Echo."

He set the printout of the girl's face on the table, and then leaned forward, that predatory gleam once more in his eyes.

"Now," he said, his voice low and hungry. "Tell me _everything_ you know about this girl."

* * *

-

* * *

Oh, my. Is that some serious foreshadowing there?

Now, to address some specifics about this arc, and its themes. Personally, I've always felt that one of the key defining features of Firefly is family. I explored how the family works together in the previous arc, Mosaic, and in this arc, I explored the opposite: what happens when that family is in conflict. I asked myself at what point would family override loyalties, and the more I though about it, the more I realized the most basic defining factor of the crew of _Serenity_ is that _loyalty is defined __**by**__ family_. With the exception of Jayne, everyone on the crew would die for each other, and even Jayne's selfishness is iffy at this point in the plot.

So, central to the plot of Adrift was that Mal is forced into a difficult choice: sacrifice one for the whole, or risk the whole for the one. And Mal loves his crew, and Mal is scared to lose his crew, so he makes the choice to preserve the whole at the cost of the one, even though it is quite clear that the whole would gladly give itself for the one. Once Mal makes this decision, he then realizes how this goes against the very nature of his crew, and violates that unspoken trust the crew has in him. The reason the crew follows Mal and stays with him is not due to his authority, but because they trust him to protect _everyone_ on the ship. That, more than anything else - whether it be his gun hand, his clever plans, or his force of personality - is what gives him his authority in the first place. Trust is what binds the crew to Mal, and when he breaks that trust . . . .

Well.

With that, we're at the end of the Adrift arc. A lot of stuff has been set up in the last few story arcs, and we're about to see the plot really thicken in the future. Expect to see some characters introduced in previous arcs return, as well as other villains taking a more active role. And we can expect at least one other character from the series to show up again soon. Things are really going to pick up over the next few arcs.

Note that in this chapter, the scene from Jayne's perspective refers to what is clearly katakana as kanji. That's deliberate; Jayne can barely read English, and knows virtually nothing about Japanese, let alone the differences in specific types of writing in that language in the first place.

Until next chapter . . . .


	38. First Interlude

**_Author's Note:_** This chapter is a bit...non-standard. This is a sort of one-shot that ties in with the rest of the overarching plot, and is primarily a character piece. These "interlude" chapters will cover events that take place outside the standard format of each episodic story arc.

This chapter is, as you probably guessed already, heavy on Riverthink. In fact, its almost nothing _but _Riverthink.

**_

* * *

_**

_**Interlude: I Am**_

In the twilight between reality and dreams, she _danced._

There was no such thing as a restful night. She would slide beneath the covers, hugging them tight to her skin, and close her eyes, surrendering to biological necessity, but the hours of transition were never still and relaxing.

Two tenths of her memory were _seared __and__ twisted_, a myriad of cul de sacs and _falsehoods _intermixed with a reality too **true** and too _**cold**_ to ignore. She saw it too often in her waking hours, but in her dreams, the memory became _unfiltered_, uncontrolled by such petty concepts _as truth and reality_. Their _faces_ twisted behind their mouths, _bulging and hissing_, their hands _growing long like knives_. The _**pain**_ wasn't normal pain, rising and falling _**like solar **__flares through the __**hydrogen **__layers of __**her skin**_.

She hated dreaming.

In between the dreams, though, was something . . . _else_.

She didn't understand it. It started three years ago, after _the first treatment_. When she wasn't dreaming, in the fugue state between REM cycles, she was aware, but not _aware_.

She felt emotions, thoughts, _twitches of cognitive process_, and the _whispered caress of others' __**dreams**_. Her mind floated in a _swirling sea of thought _that she slid among, touching with her brain's **fingers **_**and **__soaking into _with her _mind's toes_.

_She didn't remember, she didn't think, she didn't make any conscious actions, she just . . . ._

Was.

Eventually, the fugue would segue into REM sleep, and the _**seared unrealities **_would beat upon her again, ruining the rest and **the being**. She would twist, she would fight, she would cry, and she would feel **warmth** when _he_ came in the night to hold her while she struggled, to whisper in her ears and tell her she would be fine.

And at the end of it all, her eyes would open again, her mouth dry, her eyes red, and her muscles almost as tired as when she'd lain down eight hours previously.

As always, and as it forever would be.

The _cycle_ had ended, and once again she stared at the ceiling, blankets and sheets tight around her skin, bunched and coiled. Her hair was frazzled and curled, as it stayed, a tangled mess that she never got around to brushing. _Physical appearance was irrelevant_.

She rolled over, sliding the covers off her body. She glanced up, making sure the door to her room was shut, as it always was, before climbing out of bed and digging around for her clothes. It was her preference to sleep naked, and she didn't want anyone stumbling in on her.

She paused, halfway through pulling on one of her dresses. Why should she care if they saw her minus her clothes? Most of the crew had already seen enough of her naked anyway.

_**Control.**_

The answer came just as quickly as the _question_. So much of the last three years had been spent _**with control**_, and they had used her nudity as a weapon to _keep her under control_. Medical examinations, shower cycles, surgery, experimentation - so much of it had been conducted with no clothes, _in cold rooms with _**harsh light**, to capitalize on her vulnerability. _To make her feel __less human_.

Now she controlled it. Now she was a person again.

_Right?_

The dress tugged down over her, and she ran her hands through her tangled hair. She rooted around for shoes or sandals, but stopped after a few seconds, before peering down at her toes. They flexed, gripping the carpet, and she stretched them out.

No shoes today.

The carpet scratched her _rear_ as she settled down, knees hugging up against her chest. One hand tapped a rhythm on the fabric while the other crawled about, fingertips scrabbling and grabbing at a pad beneath the bed. She took it and pulled it out, and dark brown eyes scattered along the lines and _words_ and **ink** she'd scribbled over it.

Kaylee had suggested a journal, a while ago. She tried it, but it didn't take too well, because words couldn't _express_ everything she experienced. She wanted to _splash the colors __**of the scents she **__had __felt_, the _noise of the __**tastes**_, the **tactile sense of **_**their voices **_and **everything** in between. **The paradoxes **_scratched and grated _on everything logical, and all her efforts to quantify were meaningless, even after analysis was complete.

Such was what madness felt like.

Her fingers traced the markings on the pad, flipping through the pages. Some of the pages were blank save a single sentence or a nonsense scribble. Others were black with scrawled reams of text and images. Here, a page-long prose describing in detail a job Mal and Jayne had done, with neatly organized lists of all the mistakes they had made during the operation. There, a lyrical interpretation of the songs Kaylee liked to hum, written with wavy lines representative of the frequency of the individual chords (she refused to anything as cold and impersonal as normal musical notation). There, a short questionnaire on existing unified field theory, pointing out three major failings in current understandings of the concept that didn't take into account the off-center universe postulate.

On the last page, however, were two simple words:

_I am_

She stared at those words for a long while, toes flexing and tapping. She found a pen with her other hand, and tapped it against her jaw. Her eyes slowly traced the words, mentally twisting them in a dozen different languages. She chewed on the blunt end of the pen, and then tapped it against her earlobe, causing her hair to wave up and down with each passing impact of plastic on flesh.

The pad sank to the floor, the pen settling down beside it, and both _went to sleep _as she stood.

_What am I?_

They were the first words she'd written in her journal, on the very first page, with the final two words at the very end. They were the last words she would need to write, because once she reached the end, and finished the sentence, she wouldn't need the journal anymore.

At least, that was what she hoped.

Tonight was clear. There was very little _cloudiness_ in her mind. Maybe she could find a piece of the answer to that sentence.

Her fingers drummed against the metal by the sliding door, and she bit her lip. Would _Serenity_ help her tonight?

The clock by her door said fifty-two minutes until it was time.

The door slid open, and she decided to _**ask**_.

* * *

The passenger dorm was empty. Only three rooms were ever used regularly, and now that was down to two. Simon spent as much time in Kaylee's bunk as he did in his own. He didn't say it, but she knew part of the reason was to protect her. The sounds and noise and _feel_ and _**smell **_and _taste_ of lovemaking _permeated the walls_, making it hard to sleep.

What he didn't know was how the ship _echoed_ with it, the noise and _emotion __**bouncing**_ off the walls, _colored by the __beating hearts _of nine people who were all too aware of it.

She drifted toward the entrance to the passenger dorms, but paused by one sliding door. Inside, she heard the steady breathing of a sleeping preacher, and the _echoes_ of the blocks of text issuing _from symbols __and nonsense_.

She had one of her own, borrowed from a church on Greenleaf which she had never given back. Its pages were red with ink, dog-eared and torn. Part of her railed against it, unable to understand the contradictions of _God and His plan_.

Part of her couldn't reconcile God and the last four years of her life.

Something else lingered in his thoughts - _thin and red_, crystalline and secretive. She knew it, and he knew she knew it, and she knew he knew she knew it, and he knew she knew he knee she knew-

A recursive line of thought. She **terminated **it.

She frowned, hand hovering over his door. Her fingertips touched it, and the cool plastic and fiberglass was _drenched in emotion_: worry, fear, concern, love - _**vast**_ amounts of that last emotion. The love of a father, of a friend, of a grandparent and mentor and teacher.

They still needed to talk. She knew very little of what he knew, and didn't know if he knew much at all. He was so confused, so worried recently, for her and everyone else, and that made her afraid. The last thing she wanted was for others to hurt and worry on her account.

Five months ago, she'd asked Simon to put a bullet in her to prove that much.

There were too many secrets, and she didn't want to ferret them out. She'd let them lie and grow and sprout in their own time. She knew too many herself.

The stairs rose up before her, and she gingerly made her way up.

* * *

_Serenity's_ heart beat, close and familiar. It _spun and _arced, electricity _bouncing_ and coursing and **responding** and _screaming_ through the ship, a _**symphony**_ of machine operations that she _felt _like a lightning rod. It was familiar after all this time, a warm embrace of metal and **life** and _**protection**_ that she embraced back.

Her hands ran along the wall panels, fingertips tracing lines in the very thin layer of dust that had accumulated since the last clean-up. She wandered up the access corridor, _hearing_ the dance of electricity as it _tickled her ears_.

The galley was empty.

Her stomach was dull and quiet, no risk of throwing up just yet. She passed through the room, dropping down the steps one pace at a time, transitioning from the cold metal to warm cloth to rough straw back to cold metal again. She paused, scanning a nearby time piece, and did a quick calculation.

Forty-seven minutes.

The crew corridor loomed up and swallowed her, and she edged her way down it. _Hearts beat_ in multiple rhythms, and from their _echoes_ she could tell who was where.

Wash and Zoe lay together in their bunk. She paused by it, crouching at the hatch, and let the _**warmth**_ slide over and through her.

There was _stability _there, love and honesty and **closeness** that couldn't be broken. One was a solid rock, the other an uncontrolled balloon. One anchored, the other lifted. They were opposites in every possible way, which just made the union more _complete_.

That made her sigh and slowly rise, pushing away from the _honey warmth _of their presence. She enjoyed the two of them, but she also disliked the feelings it gave her. Longing, familiarity, and a reminder that _she was alone_.

She'd told Simon before that she didn't think she had a future, and that all there was ahead of her was darkness. The _sun_ would come out briefly, but it couldn't heal what was ruined. They'd taken her childhood, and in turn, had taken her future.

All that was left was a little girl, walking down a passage, feeling thoughts that weren't hers in an effort to feel _real _again.

She stopped next to the other occupied bunk.

Two more _**hearts**_ beat within, intertwined in raw and **tight** and _**passionate embrace**_. They slumbered, but the **aftereffects** reverberated like **drumbeats**, and they made her _shiver and back away_. She didn't _**want**_ to feel those thoughts from _him_, of all people.

It was a _sudden and wild_ union, unlike the _**warmth**_** and maturity **of the other pair. Both of them drank _of life _in its _fullness_, both aware acutely that this life afforded danger. They all bore the scars of that.

He still loved her, with all his heart, but love had pulled him in multiple directions. In a way, it was a blessing, for as he was pulled away, it gave her room to grow within his loosened embrace. Room to breathe on her own, to walk and to stumble and to stand back up without his arms wrapping around her every step of the way. He still held on to her, helped her stand and helped her center herself, but now . . . .

The _other_ heart was _**passion**_ incarnate, happy and _living_ and _enjoying every minute_, a font of **existence** that kept the heart of the ship and the ship's crew alive and well. And her heart had brought itself into her brother's, and together, she brought him peace and _serenity_.

That made her smile.

She pulled away from the hatch, _warmth_ tracing and tailing her, and worked her way toward the bridge.

* * *

Tonight, he couldn't sleep. So tonight, they did what they often did.

She wandered up the stairs into the heart of the mind of the ship, hands _tingling_ along the cool railing. The bridge was always cool, but it was warmed by the heat of bodies and instruments. She heard the familiar, low-key chorus of beeps and hums that meant all was well, and with the _heartbeat_ pumping up through her toes and legs, she _knew_ all was well.

He was thinking, and his thinking was a **drum**: a _canvass_, _**spread over a vast unknown**_. _**Impacts**_ resounded against him, reverberating and deflecting away, and _**the inside reacted**_, but she never knew what was in there.

Or was that the right word? He was a mask, too. _Many_ masks**, too many masks**, a _thousand-thousand _masks of **steel** and **wood** and _cloth _and paper and **stone** and _glass_, a _bo_u_**n**__**ci**__ng __ch__**a**__**os **__of __inter__**ch**__**ang**_ing_ c__on__**t**__**radi**_**cti**ons.

_Our chaos is the same. _Except he was sane, while she wasn't.

"Evenin', Albatross," he said, smiling at her in his usual way, by not smiling at all. She liked the smarmy smirk he affected unconsciously, especially when the smile was honest and certain.

"Good evening," she responded. She wanted to mimic his accent, but that would be rude. Rudeness was reserved for Jayne. Instead, she found her way to the copilot's chair, settling into the cloth and letting the bottoms of her feet kiss the air.

She peered out at the Black, at the needles of light dancing across the dark canvass past them.

"Do the stars ever talk to you?" she asked. She frowned as she spoke, not sure why she'd asked that.

His mind worked, the pages of his book slowly _flipping and rustling_. They were _worn and complex,_ covered in **ink** and _dog-eared _from too much turning.

"All the time," he finally replied, and there was honesty in his words. He wasn't humoring her, but answering her in his own way. He glanced her way. "What do they say to you?"

"Nothing," she answered. "They just . . . sing."

Anyone else might have dismissed what she said as crazy, which was true, or humored her, which was belittling. But he understood, after a fact.

He nodded, and went back to his silent vigil, and they both peered out at the stars.

After a few minutes, she looked over at him, and _**asked**_ his mind what it meant to be an adult. The response was a _jumble_, a _whisper_ and a **shout** and a _laugh _and a _sob_. She felt a rolling pile of _emotions and memories and sensation _tumble into her.

It was a tidal wave of conflicting thoughts and histories: a warrior, a hero, a soldier, a man of honor, a man of dishonor, a thief, a killer, an old man, a youth, a farmer, a captain, a torturer, a healer, a father, a son.

All was one.

Why couldn't she be like him?

"Captain?" she asked, and he looked up at her.

"Yeah, Albatross?"

"Am I real?"

He was silent, and she saw the _pages flipping_, _**ink**_ _scrawling and erasing_. He knew by now that when she asked nonsense like that, it had another meaning to it.

"You're flesh and blood, a person and a smile, and a voice with a mind behind it that makes me look like a big damn idiot," he said, smirking again.

She nodded, understanding his intention.

"Way I see it," he added, "If you spend your whole life asking what you are, you don't spend no time finding it." His hand dropped to the console, sliding along the metal.

"You've found what you are?" she asked, and he frowned.

"Not sure yet," he replied, his voice smelling of honesty. "I'll know who I am when I find him."

She was silent, mulling over that, and finally rose. She stepped past him, ruffling his hair and eliciting a frown and a grumble that brought a smile to her lips. Few people touched that most captainly of hair, but he'd tolerate her.

The crew corridor still _sang of the warmth _of being _**together**_, and she slowly drifted through it, _drinking_ it in.

Privately, she asked herself if she'd ever feel that way again.

She remembered the _firelight, _and the face of the pretty girl, and that familiar name, and the _**warmth**_ in her belly and the _fluttering_ in her chest. She remembered _**desire**_, and she remembered the sweet taste.

That was strange. She wasn't _supposed_ to like girls, and she didn't really. Maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe it was the memory.

Maybe it was three years not learning things a teenage girl was supposed to learn. Three years where the only love was . . . .

Echoes of Simon, and something else.

Thirty-one minutes left.

* * *

Here.

It was those memories and those thoughts that led her down here, into the cargo bay. It was familiar, a place of _scent _and flowing air and _open_.

It was dirty and it was cluttered and it stank of sweat and dried blood and oil and chemicals and solvents and thousand illicit cargoes. There was rust and there was _functionality_ and gratings and warm air, caressing her skin.

It was everything _the other place_wasn't.

Toes and feet pressed down in the warm metal grating of the catwalk, heated by the spotlights overhead. She wanted to stop and hug the catwalk, finding a point of equilibrium between the heat of the lights and the shade of the corners where she could stretch out and relax to the hum of _Serenity's_ heartbeat.

Instead, she found a door, and lingered outside.

Incense _drifted_ out, even through the airtight seal. It was in _her_ thoughts, in her poise and her grace and her skin and her _heart. _It permeated every aspect of what she was.

But what lurked beneath? Fear, worry, concern? She was so similar to the preacher whom she was so different from, reflecting the maternal strength and love that was a mirror to his paternal guidance.

And mixed in with that was _desire_, for one person, a desire that their mutual beliefs and differing philosophies and conundrums couldn't satisfy. She could see the _electricity_ between them, could understand why they loved each other and yet couldn't speak on it.

Part of her hurt to see that between them, and wanted to bridge the rift. Part of her was scared what might blossom if the two ever put away their **masks** and bared themselves to each other.

That much she could tell in their talks.

They met when she felt like meeting, and they talked of _nothings_. _She_ would draw, and _**she**_ would teach, and _**she**_ would listen while _she_ spoke of what _she_ _smelled and heard and tasted_ from the rest of the crew and from the places they visited. They both understood the need for this, and _**she**_ understood that not everything could be explained to a rigid, solid mind like her brother's.

The _**Companion**_ could feel and empathize, and that made her unique among this crew, more so than the others. In a way, she was the closest to a kindred spirit _she_ had.

An empath.

Perhaps _she_ would talk again, soon. Talk about something other than the _smells of thought_ and _the taste of emotion_, of calligraphy and its ultimate meaninglessness in the entropy of reality. Talk of what she felt when she'd kissed that girl, of what memories she held in her from **that place**that had _raped_ three years from her.

She checked the clock on the wall, seeing it far below with sharp eyes. Twenty-seven minutes.

She pulled away from the shuttle doors, and inched her way down the stairs, eyes scanning, thoughts playing over and through, scanning the _vaults and twisting corridors _of the mind for one memory in particular.

She padded along the smooth metal and ceramic floor, dust caking the sides of her toes, rust roughly tickling the bottom of her feet. She paced, the slow circling of a hawk descending on still prey. As she moved, she lowered herself to the deck, fingers sliding over the grating and grazing over the dust, picking it up and carrying it in her wake. Finally . . . .

**Here.**

She sank to the deck, curling her legs up against her chest, arms wrapping around them, and she remembered.

_Dust hung in the air, mixed with steam. A thousand-thousand different sensations rolled through her at once: cold, heat, boiling skin, __electricity__, different sections of her brain firing at different times, one arm moving, the other still numb, __**bile punching **__into her throat, skin _crawling_ and _twitching_ as __**ice water **__and _searing heat _rolled though her._

_Confusion, uncertainty, and one string of curious, perverse interest flickered out, lashing her mind as she clambered up, punching her way back into the waking world, and collapsed to the warmth of the deck. Scents rushed in, assaulting her with things she was unfamiliar with. _Disorder_ loomed on all sides, __**darkness**__ and heat and _**presence**_ and __family__ and _**concern**_ and biting lights and rust and _**he**_ was there, in front of her, his mind _latching _onto hers and _twisting and pulling and wrenching _her back __into reality__._

_" . . . Simon?"_

_And she broke. Every piece of sanity she'd been clinging to crashed and shattered in a babble of chaos, terror, confusion, happiness, uncertainty . . . ._

_His arms warmed her, and she sobbed in his shoulder, babbling everything she knew, everything she _wanted_ to know, chills lancing up and down her naked body while he held her close._

_She could hear his heartbeat, and mixed in with it, rising through her back and her rear and her feet, she felt another _heartbeat_._

Serenity_ thrummed through her, and in his arms, in this dirty and confusing and chaotic place, surrounded by lechers and bad old men and good old men and iron-hard soldiers and prostitutes and crazy pilots and cheery mechanics and her brother, she was home._

"Girl."

It wasn't a question, or even a statement. It was just a word, grunted because there was nothing else to grunt. It hung in the air, _bouncing_ off her ears, and finally she looked up.

He was standing by the weight set, frowning, all _**muscles**__ and hugeness_. The _pages_ of his book were _**BIG and BOLD **_and **red and black**, _all_ clear _**and**_ simple. Right now, they were a mixture: confusion, wariness, and a tiny bit of concern.

"You cryin' or somethin'?" he asked, walking toward her, a scowl on his face.

"No," she replied, retaining clarity as best she could.

His thoughts were the most intrusive, and the most troubling. Some of them hid theirs so much that she could ignore them, some of them hid nothing but directed it elsewhere, but his were _everywhere_ and **simple** and impossible to hide. His head was like a big radar jammer, sending out signals that flooded everything else with that **simple** and that _**everywhere**_.

And though his thoughts were easy to understand, they were not pretty. They flicked like _automatic machines_, his eyes automatically tracing figures and faces and making evaluations. Was it a woman? Yes. Was there a weapon? No. Was she pretty? Yes? Could he bed her without a problem? No. Move along.

So simple. So crude.

But there was a sliver of redeeming in here, somewhere. She'd tasted it after they'd been on Higgin's Moon, and then whenever he looked at her after Ariel. He'd tried to turn her once he thought she was trouble, but he'd been scared. He admitted it to no-one except himself, and to Mal when they had enough alcohol.

And, a _tiny_ bit to her, after everything they'd suffered together.

"Well, its sleep-cycle, and you need some sleepin', so git," he said, frowning and gesturing.

"No."

That made his scowl deepen, and he strode up beside her, looming over her. His hands twitched, and he wanted to just haul her up and shove her out of the bay, if only because he could. Fear stayed his hand, and something else . . . .

_Concern. _

A few moments' silence passed, and he growled in the back of his throat, before turning and loping toward the weight rack. He settled down, grabbing a pair of one-handed weights, and started doing bicep curls, all the while staring at her.

Finally, she rose. The tickle of rust and dust flowed up her legs as she took a few steps forward, stretching her legs out. He watched her move, and she caught the _automatic thoughts_ tracing through him as he watched her move.

"You were right," she said, suddenly, and he blinked, eyes rising to meet hers.

"'Bout what?" he asked, but she didn't answer. Instead, she simply drifted past him, toward the door.

"Better get to sleep," he grunted over his shoulder, and she smiled to herself. He was right on that matter as well, but she hadn't meant sleep. Not yet.

Nineteen minutes, she noted, passing another clock.

The infirmary floated past, but she ignored the **cold** and the **sanitary**. Her fingers caressed the warm softness of one of the chairs in the common room, and she turned, drinking in the cool amber of the passenger dorm. So empty, save for the wizened thoughts of _scriptures_ and **reality** drifting from the Shepherd's room.

The door slid closed behind her, and she locked it as quietly as she could manage. The lights dimmed, and the dress slowly rose, before crumpling to the floor. Warm closeness caressed her bare skin.

Her fingers dug up the journal once more, and she flipped through the pages, one hand curling strands of brown-black hair between index and middle fingers.

She reached the end, and she analyzed the words once more. A pen ended up in her fingers, and it tapped the side of the journal.

_I am_

In the lightless depths, she felt like she was in the Black once again. There were no stars, but there were no memories. No songs, no words, no worries. The journal settled to the floor, and her fingers rose, touching her temples, her jaw, and her chest. There were spots there, lines of soft flesh that were hardened a fraction. Each line was a memory, and each memory was _**pain**_.

That was part of being a person. That much, the captain had taught her.

And now, what was she? A person, certainly, but . . . .

What had the _mercenary _said? The big hulking man-ape that pretended he never cared about her when he quietly doted on her like a sociopathic big brother?

His words, the words he'd spoken to her before she'd gone off to fight for her other brother, resounded in her ears. What she'd gathered from _Serenity_, from its beating heart and its living crew, its _**captain**_ and its pilot and its soldier and its mechanic and its heart and its soul and its father and its doctor, all came together.

The pen settled down to the paper, and she traced the word. It was long and slow, a flowing, singular stroke that stretched out beside the two words. Her hand and wrist rose and fell, tracing the letters, even as she remembered what _he'd_ told her, and what _**he'd**_ taught her.

She leaned back, peering through the gloom, and though her eyes couldn't see the word, she knew she'd written it as perfectly as possible.

_I am functional._

She closed the journal and slid it under her bed.

It was the truth. It was a promise, and it was her future. At the end of the journal, and the end of the journey, those three words were all that would matter.

She wouldn't despair anymore. She wouldn't be helpless. She was a _person_ - damaged, frail, and insane, certainly, but a _person_ nonetheless. No longer a child, no longer a plaything, no longer a burden to be borne on a shoulder or a charge to be safeguarded or a weapon to be feared.

_Never again._

"Happy birthday," she whispered, and clambered back into bed. She pulled the covers about herself, closed her eyes, and descended once again into the _murky expanse _of sleep.

Seven minutes and forty-nine seconds later, according to the atomic clocks in every scientific institution in the 'Verse, she turned eighteen.

For the first time in four years, River Tam slept in peace.

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** This chapter, I'll admit, was something of a self-indulgence. As I've said before, River is my favorite character from Firefly, and this story is River-centric. I've been really wanting to delve into the nature of her brain, and the inspiration for this interlude came along after finishing with the last chapter.

The basic idea of this chapter is to show the sort of psychological transition River would need to make to shift from being what is essentially a passive, nonaggressive character into something stronger and more mature. At the most basic level, throughout most of Firefly and Serenity, River exists in a state of quiet despair, knowing she'd never be healed, and even though she began transitioning away from that at the end of the movie and has continued throughout this story, there comes a critical moment. Even with everyone around her helping her along, River is the one who is going to have to make the choice to be strong and be independent, even if she can't always be that way due to her madness. She has to make the choice to move _forward_, instead of linger in the past.

In this chapter, she finally made that choice, and commemorates her eighteenth birthday with a promise to be no one's slave, tool, or victim ever again. She is an _adult_ now. Woe betide _anyone_ who tries to break her again.

Now, to address something that has been popping up in a lot of reviews. _Consider this your warning for this story._There _will _be a pairing between River and...._someone_....later on in this story. I'm not going to say who it is, or even if its going to be one person or multiple, or even the gender. All I will say is that I plan to have it be somewhat unconventional, and, in traditional Joss Whedon fashion, any romantic development involving River will be chaotic and difficult and bumpy. Because let's face it: nothing _ever_ comes to River easily, and it wouldn't _be_ River if there wasn't screaming, tears, madness, and face-smashing along the way.

And to tell the truth, it wouldn't be Firefly, either.

Next story arc, we're back to the gang as a whole, as they line up exciting new crime!

Until next chapter.....


	39. Silver: Prologue: Sunrise

**Author's Note: **Very short prologue for the next arc.

_**

* * *

**_

_**Prologue: Sunrise**_

_Illumination descended through breaks in the clouds far to planetary east, casting a sliver of pale white light over the red stones. It reached over the landscape, lighting rock and sand and the faintest whisps of silver-gray clouds, along with a spray of equally red blood. _

_It touched, clung to, and reflected off the graceful, rising arc of bright, shimmering red as it described a delicate rise and fall, a twisting, spiraling elegance of escaping life that chased a falling body. Dust rose as the dying figure hit the dark red dirt, and the blood pattered down onto the stone and into the sand and across his clothes like so much rain._

_One._

_There were shouts and yells, mixed in with cries of confusion and more than a little disbelief._

_That left an opening._

_The blade that had created the delicate spray of blood struck again, in time with a quick step forward. This cut went from the middle of the neck down to the left pectoral, slicing through a lung and tearing open the heart as it wound it way through its victim. The man stumbled backward, pistol falling to the dirt, screaming in pain._

_Two._

_Another step, and the blade arced across, rising and falling in a swift, almost dismissive backhand. It buried into the bicep of the man behind the second, and a flick of the wrist had it coming back across, striking the wrist of the man's gun hand. Even as he began to cry out in agony, the blade weaved upward and thrust out, driving into its victim's throat. Blood spilled over the man's fine clothes as he gasped, and then the blade slid free with a slick, quiet hiss of steel on flesh._

_Three. _

_Five seconds had passed since the blade had been drawn._

_Twenty-two men remained, only now they were aware of the danger, and now they had weapons ready. They were confident, better armed, well-trained, and certain they could win._

_They had no idea what they were up against._

_The blade whistled, bullets blazed, and a sun rose on another bloody morning in the 'Verse._

* * *

About one hundred kilometers away, the sun was rising on another patch of reddish landscape, a lengthy plain of light scrub set amongst dark-colored boulders and pale red sand and dust. The wind skittered along, picking up granules and tossing them about, while small insects flitted among the stones and dirt. Light skipped off their own russet carapaces, making them look like jittering drops of blood crawling among the rocks.

"How long you think 'till they get here?" asked the bulky man looming to the north of one particularly flat rock, shielding his eyes with one hand. He felt the sun and the wind against his skin, and while it wasn't unfamiliar, it was still a mite unpleasant.

"Can't say when," replied the other, peering southward. He grimaced, squinting in the mounting sunlight, and looked back north, making a point to turn easterly as he did so. "'less they found trouble, should be making contact by little past sunrise, local time."

"You think they found some?" Jayne Cobb asked, grunting as he kept up his vigil, eyes sweeping northward and easterly, and stopping whenever his eyes moved too far west.

"Not a speck compared with what we've got," Malcolm Reynolds replied. Hands planted firmly on his waist as sand breezed past him. One hand rose up to scratch an itch on his chest.

"Don't like it," Jayne muttered, frowning. His hand moved down his side, to the pistol he should have been wearing. "Didn't like this job anyhow."

"Speaking from retrospect, Jayne?" Mal asked, though he agreed. He missed the weight of his sidearm, and especially his longcoat. Either would have been a good comfort now.

"I ain't arguin' with the take," Jayne countered. "Got an armful o' pretty, mostways thanks to Kaylee."

"But," Mal said, catching that tone in Jayne's voice.

"But . . . _gorram_ it."

"When _Serenity_ gets here," Mal said. "I'm gonna suggest you let Kaylee go in first. Get what needs got. Don't want to scare the womenfolk none."

"Ain't nothin' I got gonna scare Zoe. Kaylee maybe, but she's seen plenty already. 'Nara, might offend her sensibilities. _Xi gui_, already told her I'd show her if she kept that name-callin'."

"You threatened to what?" Mal saidm turning around and glaring directly at Jayne.

"She wouldn't shut up 'bout them girl's names, so's I told her I'd prove her I got man-"

"Is there any way you could be more of an ape?" Mal asked, turning and looking back south with a shake of his head.

"Doc said somethin' similar once," Jayune muttered, and that made Mal wince. Last thing he liked to think of was himself and Simon speaking similar.

"Well, you're not going on the ship, not without some pants on."

"Yeah, yeah," Jayne muttered, scratching his exposed posterior with his free hand while he searched the horizon with his other.

Mal scowled as he and Jayne kept up their vigil as the sand blew past, both men standing stark naked in the middle of the blood-red desert.

Again.

"And Jayne, keep your eyes pointed north," Mal reminded Jayne, to which he grunted.

"I ain't sneakin' none," he growled, tone a bit hurt and angry.

"See you ain't. Got enough traumatizing for one day." Mal paused, and glanced westward, his voice softening. "How you holdin' up?"

"I'm fine, Cap'n," said Kaylee, her voice distant. She was seated on a large flat rock, looking away to the west. With the exception of the singed, finely-tailored carpet draped over her shoulders, she was as naked as the two men.

Yeah, Mal thought, scowling as he went back to his vigil. This job had gone _real_ well.

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** As I said, this prologue is _very_ short. I recently suffered a computer crash and lost two whole chapters' worth of material, forcing me to go back and rewrite this arc. I've revised a great deal of this one, and part of that included creating this prologue. This arc is pulling a bit from "Trash," particularly the post-caper intro, and also adding a little bit more. I'll be playing a little bit with perception and time in this story arc, as well.

Not sure how regular updates will be on this one, as there are some Real Life issues I have to contend with. Hopefully they won't impede the process too much.

And yes, this prologue opens with a lot of questions needing answering. They _will_ be answered, I assure you.

Until next chapter . . . .


	40. Chapter One: Interference

_**Chapter One: Interference**_

_Twenty-two men stood with weapons drawn. The rising sun glittered off of gunmetal and steel, and the weapons rose toward the figure with the blade._

_Another step took the figure in close, blade slashing down as it spun around the closest man. The weapon hacked down through the man's gun hand, slicing into the palm and knicking the grip. The man screamed as his hand came apart, blood flying through the air, and a hand snaked out, grabbing his shirt. He was spun around as a pistol went off, and his body jerked as rounded punched through his chest and stomach._

_Four._

_Using the dying body as a shield, the figure slid forward, gliding over the red stones, and the blade punched out in a savage stab that hit the next man in the chest, running halfway up to the hilt. The figure ducked and spun, tearing the blade free and shoving the body into the path of oncoming fire._

_Five._

_Two men were standing side by side, firing their guns at the ducking, weaving figure. A round grazed a shoulder, and another struck the figure dead center in the chest, but by then it was upon them, hacking down through one man's forehead while kicking out the other's knee, shattering it and shoving his leg in a direction it was never intended to go. As he fell, screaming, the blade came free and stabbed down, a swift economical stroke that plunged into the falling man's throat._

_Six and seven._

_By now, everyone was shooting; either at falling bodies or at the blade-wielder, but only a few rounds had come close to their mark, with the dying being used as the only cover on the open plain._

_Ten seconds had passed since the blade had been drawn. The blade arced across, taking the eighth man's throat, and showed no signs of stopping its brutal dance._

* * *

_Two weeks earlier_

One week had passed, more or less. River would have quantified how useless it was to use standard days as time measurements when the Verse ran on five stars, multiple protostars, and about a hundred different orbits, rotations, and lunar cycles. Nonetheless, somewhere in the vicinity of a week had gone from their last harrowing escape and the predicament the crew of the not-terribly-fine vessel _Serenity_ were in now.

"It's a big stone turd," Jayne commented in his particular breed of eloquence.

An oblong rock bearing coloration not dissimilar from that of a healthy, solid leaving sat in the bay of the Firefly, surrounded by seven gawking crewmembers. The asteroid was the reason they'd traveled out this far, and it had been partly to blame for the last harrowing adventure, but had been all but forgotten when mixed in with the blood, the dying, the cannibal pirates, and the birthday party.

Protein cake and synthetic ice cream had a way of muddying the memories.

"Please, Jayne, never speak at a funeral," Wash remarked. "Especially mine."

"Don't plan to," the mercenary replied.

During the exchange, Malcolm Reynolds slowly circled around the asteroid, eyeing it like it was someone who'd tried to kill him before. In a way, it had, trying its damnedest to crush him between its bulk and his ship. Seen this close and in its proper shape and coloration, Mal found the idea that this thing had nearly killed him to be even more embarrassing than he'd imagined. It was one thing to get killed by your own contraband, but it was another thing entirely to be killed by one that looked like the remnants of Simon's best attempt at Protein Soufflé Surprise.

"Who wants to take bets that whatever's inside this rock wants to kill us too?" Wash asked. There were no takers. Instead, Mal crouched beside a seam in the rock, scowling in a particularly ferocious manner.

The asteroid refused to be intimidated. The captain's hands rose, feeling along the seam, and he found a groove inside the stone.

"Got it," he said, and pulled. A chunk of rock slid out into his hands.

"Since when does an asteroid have a hidden compartment?" Simon mused, standing beside Kaylee as they peered over the captain's shoulders.

"Since our contacts hauled it in and made one," Zoë answered, circling around and crouching beside Mal as he continued removing chunks of rock.

"Seems an awful waste of time and effort to just make a drop," Wash said, trying to get a look around the shoulders of all those assembled.

"Gotta be somethin' worth a pretty fortune in there," Jayne added, always interested in what mattered most in his eyes. He felt a jab in the back of his ribs as he said that, and glanced over his shoulder.

"Can't see," River complained, and the look on her face told him she blamed him and him alone of that problem. "You're large and wasteful."

"Ain't my fault you're tiny," he shot back. "I got parts taller'n you in my-"

"Jayne!" four voices yelled at once, and Mal leaned back to give him his special Captain-y glare.

"Aw, we're all grown-ups here," he grunted, scowling right back and crossing his arms. "'Specially since the girl turned proper."

"Jayne, if you're gonna be horrific," Zoë suggested, as Mal went back to work. "Be the useful kind."

The mercenary muttered something, taking a step back directly into River's path to push her away from him. She hopped backward, and then her leg shot forward, pressing against the back of his knee. He let out a surprised yelp and almost went down to one knee, and while he was unbalanced, Jayne felt her hands run up his back. As he rose, a weight settled across his back and a pair of legs cinched tight around his waist. River hauled herself up onto Jayne's shoulders and looked over his head, arms closing around his neck.

"Now you're useful," River said, and he reached back to grab her head. She pre-empted that by tightening her grip around his neck and hauling herself up higher on his back.

"_Gorram_ . . ." he hissed, but then stopped and simply straightened. "Can you damn well see now?" he hissed, and she mumbled an affirmative.

He didn't say anything further, just alternated his focus between trying to look at what the Captain was up to and imagining how he'd get properly childish revenge on the girl for taking advantage of his tolerance for _her_ childish pranks.

"Thank you," River hummed into his ear, and the latter part of his thoughts went down kicking and screaming. Jayne muttered a few choice curses and adjusted his stance to make bearing the ninety pounds of insanity on his back easier.

"And here's our cheery contraband," Mal said, a few moments later, hauling out a box the size of a suitcase. "That's the first bit. Let me get the rest." He handed the box to Zoë, while the crew crowded around her.

"What is it?" Kaylee asked, curious, peering at the stainless steel case that superficially resembled . . . .

"It's a cryo box," Simon said, a frown in his tone.

"What's inside it?" Jayne asked, peeking over everyone's heads.

"Its small," Simon said, taking the box from Zoë's hands. "Very small. And it's lacking the health monitors you'd find if it was carrying something alive."

"So, it's dead?" Kaylee asked.

"Preserved corpse, or maybe a frozen organ, but yes," Simon said, nodding.

"Wait, we're smuggling organs?" Wash asked, eyes widening. "You, ah, remember the last time we ended up transporting organs?"

"I do," Mal added, standing up, a distinctly unhappy look on his face, and his hands empty. "And I remember what we did to the last carrier for those organs. But that's moot, seeing how that box is it."

"Nothing else in there?" Zoë asked, and Mal nodded.

"No more in the compartment inside the asteroid. They hollowed it out like it was supposed to be, stuck the transponder in there, but that's it."

A moment of silence passed around the cargo bay.

"Anyone feel a powerful sense of wrongness just now?" Wash asked. "Or was that just the Doc's Protein Soufflé Surprise?"

* * *

_" . . . One Three Seven showed significant aversion to the device, despite never having encountered it before, and the fact that the device was unpowered at the time. Subject required restraint and sedation before exposure. At twelve minutes and fourteen seconds into the procedure, One Three Seven suddenly recovered from the sedation and regained consciousness. Subsequent blood tests after implementation of code word showed the subject had extremely high adrenaline levels in her blood, well past standard flight-or-fight responses. Doctor Hall hypothesizes this was due to exposure to the device and the subliminal aggression procedures . . . ."_

The voice was scratchy, distorted, but male. It was low and quiet, but nonetheless filled the room, even at the low volume he had set the speaker. He frowned as he listened, carefully taking notes on the pad in his hands before resuming playback.

_"On . . ." _the recording cut out, scrambling and skipping, due to data corruption. He frowned and his fast forward, until he could hear voices again.

"_-tor Smith approved exposure to Blank One One Seven. Subject Empath One Three Seven responded with mild aversion at first, but shortly after direct contact seemed to relax, and for the first time in approximately seventy-two days engaged in active conversation, though notably subdued, most likely due to awareness of the observation staff's presence. Smith theorizes that the presence of a Blank who is not security staff may have engendered interest and curiosity in One Three Seven. Colonel Dannett has proposed running a combat simulation with the two Subjects to determine viability. That suggestion is pending approval; right now, Doctors Smith and Mathias wish to work on behavioral adjustment, particularly with relation to improvements to lucidity and stability, before continuing combat applications."_

Curious, he thought. They were more interested in keeping her sane thanmaking her viable for combat? Judging by what he'd observed, they seemed more concerned - or at least successful - at the latter instead of the former.

_"Mathias has pushed forth a theory relating to the various Empaths' notable understanding of mechanical devices, even when they have never encountered them. He postulates that the Empaths possess a 'sixth sense' in relation to electr-"_

Static, garbled voices. More corrupted data. He mumbled under his breath and continued along until he could make out more of the report.

_"-which flies in the face of Gallifery's 'dark energy' theorem, despite the fact that both theories seem to have some evidence to support them, particularly with regards to the Kinetics. Inducers also seem to be able to manipulate both, though limited purely to the perceptions of the external senses. Thus far, we haven't been able to detect any change in the testing chambers while these effects are underway. Our sensors are able to pick up any form of energy in the known spectrum, but all three types seem to be reacting and responding to something we can't detect yet. This may in fact tie in with the 'dark energy' phenomenon that brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-"_

He grumbled again, fast forwarding through the buzzing sound, and then the datapad flashed that the remainder of the sound file was corrupted. He sighed, shutting the device off, and sat back, reviewing his scribbled notes.

Three known types. Possibly a fourth, though what that one did he didn't know. And as far as he was able to tell, while they could amplify the capabilities of all their subjects, the actual abilities themselves were a complete unknown despite decades of intensive research.

_Decades_, he thought, shuddering. They had been doing this to children for _decades_.

"You were right, old friend," Derrial Book whispered, pulling the data needle out of the datapad, the same needle he'd nearly died - and for which Lancaster _had_ died - to acquire.

He'd barely scratched the surface of what the needle contained, but if the data he'd seen was any indication, the contents of this thin sliver of data crystal could topple the Alliance with a scandal that made the Miranda Incident - as they'd come to call it nowadays across the 'Verse - look like a speeding ticket.

It was one thing to have a reader on hand, with vaguely quantifiable abilities. It was another thing entirely to have proof of a systematic program to generate them through kidnapping and mentally destroying children.

He put the needles away in his pack, and then looked down over the notebook. He'd started compiling this shortly after their third battle with Niska's men, and it had a list of everything he'd observed over the last few months, along with his notes and what he'd gleaned from the needle. It was distressingly inconsistent.

After a while, his watch beeped, and Book looked up at the time. He sighed, putting his notebook away, and rose.

Dinnertime.

* * *

"I'd say, as much of a blessing as gravity is," Mal muttered, grunted as he heft a bag across his shoulders, "sometimes it can be a real trouble."

"I'd be happy to help you," Zoë said, walking up the stairs behind him, arms notably empty. "I can-"

"Doctor's orders," Mal said. "No unnecessary staining and such. Don't want to cause a complication." Zoë paused, and the lack of sound following him made Mal pause as well. He turned around, the bag's metallic contents clicking and clinking as he turned in the tight confines of the 'tween-decks stairwell.

"Sir, if that's how you want to do it, I've got no problem," she replied, a slight smirk on her face. The way she spoke and the look on her face was among the closest she'd ever come to really rebuking Mal, and that gave him extra pause. Zoë and Mal didn't argue; the concept was unthinkable. He led and she followed, and she piped in sane advice when he did something potentially painful - mostly to himself. If he didn't want her to haul parts around the boat that she was otherwise fully able to, on account of her being near two months pregnant, she wasn't going to argue . . . but she would jab him on it.

"I'd just like it if our actual muscle would haul this instead of me," Mal said, starting back up the stairs.

"Jayne's outside helping Kaylee glue the engine back together," Zoë reminded him.

"And that I don't dispute," Mal replied as they entered the access corridor running to the engine. "But as Captain, I do feel I am entitled to my monthly nonsensical bitching and moaning session."

"Noted," she said, and they stepped into the engine room a moment later.

"I am thinking on another matter though," he said, as he ducked under the furious rewiring job Kaylee had done, which made the engine room look less like a compartment on a boat and more like an off-color jungle had sprung up.

"What's that, sir?"

"With you expecting, we're liable to run short on a gun hand down the line," he said. "And we all saw what happened when the Doc got hurt. Got me thinking on matters."

He dropped off the bag and turned around, face screwed up in concern.

"I'm thinking since River's turned eighteen, and she's done decent on her own before, might asking her to come along more on the dangerous jobs."

"Simon's not going to like that," Zoë said as they headed out of the engine room. "Especially after Niska. Doctor's not liable to let River run around unwatched."

"Doc can't tell the girl what she does now," Mal replied. "Might be odd in the brainpan, but she's sane enough when it counts, 'specially after what she did with the Shepherd. And we're gonna be short a shooter down the line once you get a ways further along. Might be we've got no choice."

"I agree," Zoë replied. "I don't like it, though. She's unstable, especially getting off the ship. You saw how she reacted to that Blue Sun sign."

"I still got aches and marks from that," Mal agreed, nodding. "But she's turned more than one dangerous run our way. And she's not got any trouble with helping out herself. In any case, that's just one of the issues I got here."

"What's the rest?" she asked, and he frowned, scratching his chin.

"I'm thinkin' we need to start diversifying," he said. "Cross-training folks. Doc's hurt got me worried about what might happen if someone aside from you or me or Jayne gets injured. Wash or Doc again, or heavens not, Kaylee . . . ."

"Sounds reasonable," Zoë replied. "And it would help if some of the others had a little more understanding of how to protect themselves. Doctor's not weak but he's inexperienced, and Kaylee's been brushing violence too often not to be able to take care of herself."

Mal nodded, and started up the hallway again toward the mess, with Zoë following. The smell of cooking food drifted toward them.

"I'm gonna think on it a bit, though I can't see Kaylee hurting folk. By the by, that smells like preacher-food," Mal said, a grin in his voice, and he stepped into the mess to see Book in the kitchen, doting over a pot of artfully redesigned protein.

"Captain," Book said, looking up. "I've heard about our take on that last job. Most . . . sizable."

"Yep, a mighty immense pile of pretty," Mal said with a shrug as he walked across the room and peered into the pot. Steam wafted up into his face. Behind him, Zoë moved past, grabbing a couple of bottles of water and heading up the crew corridor.

"A single cryo box," Book said, frowning, his voice thoughtful. "I don't suppose Simon or River had anything to say about it?"

"Albatross ain't spoke a peep, and Doc's just as in the dark as the rest of us," Mal replied. "Says he can't do nothing with it unless he opens it up. What is that? It smells like rabbit."

"Dried jerky," Book said, "Looks like it was from Whitefall, judging by the packaging. Found it in the back of the cooler, looked like it would work." He stirred the stew, and then looked back up at Mal. "I understand our drop is at Silverhold."

"Yes, it is," Mal said, heading across the room toward the cabinets.

"So, we're heading for Silverhold, with a cryobox most likely containing contraband organs," Book continued, and Mal looked back at him as he grabbed a bottle of milk from one of the coolers.

"That's the make of it, I've guessed," Mal said, nodding. "And you ain't gotta say it. I ain't forgotten our last run-in with gut-runners."

"Womack's gang was based on Silverhold," Book added. "If he catches wind we're about, he might cause trouble."

"There's twenty million folks on that rock and ten thousand ships comin' and goin'," Mal said, shrugging it off. "I don't plan on staying long anyhow. Drop the box, get paid, get moving again before anyone catches we're there."

"Well, you haven't led us astray yet," Book said, and that made Mal pause in mid-drink. He frowned, trying to see if the preacher had hidden a rebuke in there, especially considering their last few adventures and the heads that had butted as a result. So, Mal got to the bottom of that in typical Captain Reynolds fashion.

"Preacher, you got something you feel's needin' to be said?" No sense dancing around the issue when you could punch it in the nose.

"Not at all, Captain," Book replied, stirring the pot. His eyes remained on Mal's face, though. "I just hope that you keep on the course you've set."

"I'm not one for the straight and narrow, Shepherd," Mal said. "I tend to weave a bit. More than . . . well, most, but. Anyhow." He hooked a thumb toward the crew corridor running to the bridge. "Better check on my pilot."

"Very well, Captain," Book replied. "Dinner should be ready in about ten minutes."

"Lookin' forward to rabbit stew," Mal said, honest as he could be, and headed out of the room, leaving the Shepherd to his work.

* * *

She stared at the needle like it was going to bite her, which he supposed it was.

"No."

"River, I need to take your blood," Simon said, patient and reasonable. He took samples from her regularly to test the effectiveness of his medications, but she had an aversion to them that he fully understood, especially in the infirmary. He supposed it would be better if he tried taking blood in some place more comfortable, like her room or his. As it was, he'd had to dance around her unwillingness every month for the last year.

"This will be over quickly," he said, reaching out taking her hand. Her eyes flicked between his fingers and the syringe sitting on the counter, and he saw her lips and jaw working slowly. "I just need a few milliliters. Can you sit still for me?"

"I don't want the cold," she said, sidling back a few inches on the counter, her fingers tightening around his hand. "The sharp and cold, it . . . ."

She paused, closing her eyes, and Simon tensed, worried she was having another disassociative flashback. Her fingers tightened around his, a sharp and painful grip.

"Its okay, River," Simon said, taking a step closer to her and putting his other hand around her shoulders, pulling her into a hug. "I don't have to take a sample right now if you don't want to."

A few seconds passed, and her grip loosened. He let her go, and took a step back, and saw her eyes were still closed, but her features had relaxed. She finally opened her eyes, and they fixed on the syringe, with a mixture of fear and sadness. Her other arm rose toward him, turning over to expose her wrist.

Simon recognized her intentions, and picked up the syringe. River closed her eyes and bit her lip as he swabbed her wrist and gently inserted the needle. He quickly drew the small amount of blood he needed and then gave her a quick bandage.

In some ways, he reflected, she was still exactly like his baby sister so long ago.

"Hated needles then too," she whispered, and he nodded.

"Thank you," he said, and looked up into her face, but the pained look on her features made his words die in his ears. He put the vial of blood away quickly and disposed of the needle, and then pulled River into another hug.

"I'm sorry," he offered.

"I don't want to remember," she whispered.

"If you don't like me taking blood in the infirmary, maybe we can do it somewhere else," he suggested.

"No, no, it's . . . I . . . needles in my eyes, they . . . " River raised one arm to shield her face for a moment, but then lowered her arm, frowning and shaking her head."Buzzing."

"Do you want another shot?" he asked. "Something to make things clearer?" She shook her head again.

"Too clear anyway," she whispered, fiddling with her fingers. "The buzzing's still there anyway. Electrical. Drugs won't help."

"Something wrong with the ship?" he asked, taking her by her arm and helping her off the counter and toward the door. She stopped after setting foot on the floor, and her head turned to the other side of the infirmary.

The cryo box was sitting on the counter on the far side of the room. Simon still hadn't had time to examine it beyond a simple cursory look, but he knew he wouldn't get much out of it unless he popped the seal. The box had no scanners or ports for identification or checking the contents. It could have been empty, for all he knew.

"Is the cryo box bothering you?" he asked, and she bit her lip.

"It's buzzing too much," she whispered.

"Well, let's go somewhere else," he suggested. Maybe the box was giving her bad memories? "Get away from it."

"Too much buzzing," she said, shaking her head. "I can hear it everywhere."

Simon frowned, leading River out of the infirmary. Her steps were uncertain and uncharacteristically clumsy, like she was disoriented. Simon couldn't tell if it was due to some sickness she might have picked up or a symptom of her most recent bout of disassociation. She'd never had that reaction when she'd been in contact with other cryo machinery before.

River mumbled something about being hungry, and they headed up the stairs toward the galley. Her steps were still confused and uncertain, and she was rubbing her temples as they got to the top of the stairs. Simon heard the heavy footsteps of a space suit behind him, and Kaylee's voice in his ear as the mechanic moved up behind them, having finished her work outside the ship.

"Hey, Simon," she said, and the cheery tone of her voice soothed the worry creeping into him, if only a hair. He glanced back, seeing her smiling face, though Kaylee's grin faded when she saw River stumbling beside him. "What's wrong?"

"Bad day," both the Tams said at the same time, and River shook her head again.

"We should probably get her sitting down," Kaylee said, helping Simon lead River into the galley. The smell of ready soup filled the room, but they didn't pay much attention as they helped River get to one of the chairs in the sitting area. Book was finishing up in the kitchen and stepped around the counter, the soup pot in hand.

"Is everyone ready for . . . what's wrong?" He set he pot down and moved over. River was lying back in the seat, her eyes glazed over. "Is she okay?"

"She's just having a moment," Simon reassured him, helping her sit up.

She leaned forward suddenly, and heaved her stomach on the floor, immediately dispelling the pleasant smell of the stew. Everyone recoiled for a moment, while River sat there, panting, shaking her head.

"It's . . . still . . . buzzing," she whispered between breaths, while Book hurried to get a towel to clean up the mess.

"Hey!" came a voice from the stairwell at the rear of the galley. Jayne lumbered into the room, clad in his own space suit, a grin on his face. "Heard there was something good cook . . . ." He paused, sniffing the air, and a terribly disappointed look crossed his face.

"Sorry," River said, looking up at the burly mercenary, whose appetite had immediately faded when he saw upchuck spread across the floor.

"Maybe food _was_ a bad idea," Simon said, his voice lame.

* * *

". . . and there were so many permutations of it," Wash said, waving the plastic dinosaurs in the air. "One of them involved a full grown and three little ones. There was another type that demanded you use a mallard, too. Two normal ducks, in addition to the goslings. And imagine the Moon's Strongest Man competition. There were some genetic _monsters _in there . . . ."

Two pairs of eyes stared back at the pilot as he sat in his chair, tossing the dinosaurs in the air as he spoke. Those belonging to his wife stared with only slightly less disbelief than those belonging to Inara, who hadn't expected this turn of conversation when she'd wandered onto the bridge this morning.

At the same time, she found the concept of juggling geese to be more than a little bit fascinating.

"Including the rich?" she asked, curious, and he nodded.

"Oh, the rich folks were the craziest," Wash said. "You haven't lived until you've seen a man in a spiffy waistcoat, a top hat, and a crystal monocle juggling seven goslings while standing on one foot. And then there were the guys with the unicycles."

"They juggled geese on _unicycles_," Zoë said, completely deadpan, eyebrows raised.

"They'd have _races_," Wash said, eyes wide, completely serious. "Races on unicycles while juggling geese. I swear on Buddha's heavenly grave of golden happiness, I'm not making it up. Unicycle geese-juggling races."

"Well, that serves as a good reminder we're not the craziest folk in the 'verse," Mal commented as he stepped onto the bridge, as per his captainly wont to barge into the middle of conversation.

"Well, we can't have that, sir," Zoë said.

"Right," Mal said, nodding. "Zoë, next port of call, we're all taking up the fine art of gosling juggling. Make a good party trick for those fancy get-togethers."

"Yes, it'll make a good bridge between your punching a random bystander and then losing the subsequent duel," Inara said, and Wash nodded.

"That was cheating, I'd like to remind you," Mal said, and Inara smiled.

"How was a fair duel cheating?" she asked, and he shrugged.

"It was fair. That's what I call cheating." Mal said. "In any case, Shepherd says he's almost got dinner ready for us, and-"

"_Gorram_ it!" they heard Jayne yell. "Girl, looks like you've been eating frogs'n grits or somethin'."

"Unless Jayne _kills our appetites_," Mal said, the last part yelled back down the corridor.

"Ain't my fault the girl decided to mess all over the mess!" Jayne hollered back.

"Suddenly, dinner doesn't appeal to me as much as it used to," Wash remarked, and agreement came from every direction on the bridge.

"I know I should go back there and see how bad it was, but I really don't want to," Mal said, sighing. "Wash, how long we gonna be 'till we hit Silverhold?"

"Another couple of days, this route," he said. "We'll make the rendezvous in time."

"Can you go any faster?" Mal asked. "Need the coin something urgent."

"Fuel's already a bit iffy," he replied. "I go full burn-"

"Right, might not make it," Mal said, frowning. They needed the pay on this job, as the repair work they'd gotten done after all the damage from the asteroid adventure had soaked up most of their available funds. All they had leftover from the job on Corinth and stripping Ott's ship was gone now.

"Well, I guess we just keep it steady and watch out," Mal added, and Wash nodded.

"Sir, what if this job doesn't pan out?" Zoë asked. "If our contact bails on us or something else goes wrong?"

"We'll find work on Silverhold," Mal replied. "Big place, lots of jobs, including legitimate ones, worst comes to it."

"Actually, if we're heading for Silverhold . . ." Everyone on the bridge turned to Inara. "I think I can line us up a job."

"Really, now?" Mal said. "I hope it's nothin' to do with Companioning and such. Not quite respectable enough, no offense."

Mal considered Inara one of the finest friends he could ask for, and he'd admitted it to no one but himself that she got him all manner of flustered. But in spite of all that they shared and after all they'd weathered, he still had more than a few jabs to throw her way, if only because he was stubborn about it and set in his ways.

"No, we'd need a sand scouring to get you anywhere decent enough," Inara shot back. Wash winced and, out of view of the Captain, mimicked rubbing burn lotion on his arm. Zoë fought the urge to smile.

"And probably orbital fire to tidy Jayne any," Mal added. "So what's the job?"

"I can line us up a buyer for-" Inara was cut off as a sudden, urgent flurry of beeps sounded from Wash's console. The pilot spun around, checking the display, and frowned.

"That's odd," he said. "There's an Alliance cruiser patrolling on this trade route that just came about." He hit a few more keys, and a tracking display appeared on the screen. After a few moments, his curious expression shifted to worry.

"They're moving to intercept with us," he said, voice rising a couple octaves.

"That's not right," Mal said, leaning over him as Zoë and Inara rose from their seats and gathered around. "We're just another drive flare on this route. Dozens of ships just like us."

"Well, they're locked right on us," Wash said, hands flying over the controls. "And running straight on our trajectory. I got thirty minutes before they intercept."

"Can you lose 'em?" Mal asked, and Wash nodded.

"Changing course now," he said, swinging the Firefly about. "Going for burn."

"Why are they after us?" Zoë asked, and Mal frowned, shaking his head.

"Could be they're checking ships at random," he said. "Standard search. Are they following?"

"Yeah, they're changing course. Wait. Wait, hold on." His hands danced across the console, and he checked another screen.

"If I'm reading this right, they're sending a transmission. Hold on, let me decode . . ." His fingers pounded on the keyboard beside his station for a few seconds, and then he sat back, blinking. "They're vectoring another cruiser in toward us. Plotting an intercept. High priority transmission, too."

_"Zhen dao mei," _Mal hissed.

"We're humped," Zoë whispered.

"There dozens of ships along this route, several a lot closer than we are," Inara said, pointing at the general sensor display. "Including two other Fireflies. Why are they focusing on us?"

"Aside from the running away?" Wash commented, but by the time he'd spoken, Mal was hurrying back toward the crew corridor and galley beyond. Wash went to work trying to evade pursuit, while the others followed Mal.

In the galley, Kaylee was sitting beside and supporting River, who was still looking sick and disoriented, swaying back and forth and rubbing her temples. Book and Simon were cleaning up the mess she'd left, while Jayne stood nearby, being definitively useless. He looked up at Mal came barging in, and the mercenary had been with this crew long enough to know that look.

"What's wrong, Cap'n?" he asked, uselessness abandoned.

"Alliance," Mal replied, catching everyone's attention save for River. "Got a cruiser heading right for us on intercept."

"What?" Jayne asked. "Why?"

"We're running, right?" Simon asked.

"Doc, that's a yes, and Jayne, that's a good question," Mal said, looking around. "Any volunteers as to such?"

"They picked us out in particular?" Book said, rising and tossing the towel he was holding into the trash. Mal nodded, and that caused a shift in Book's expression. He glanced across the room toward River.

"Jayne?" the preacher asked.

"Yeah?"

"I need a knife."

* * *

Mal, Simon, Zoë, and Jayne piled down the stairs after Book. The mercenary was holding a knife by the name of Carlita he'd fetched from his bunk, a big, nasty twenty-centimeter blade that counted almost as a small sword. Kaylee and Inara had stayed with River.

"What's goin' on?" Mal asked.

"I have a hunch," Book said, his voice knowing and certain. He strode into the infirmary, opening a drawer containing gloves.

"Doctor," he said, pulling on a pair of latex gloves while nodding toward the cryo box. "If you'd please open that?"

Simon stepped across the room to the cryo box. He hit a few keys on the side, and it hissed open a second later, filling the room with white steam. A few moments later, it dissipated, revealing the box's contents.

_"Shen me?" _Mal whispered, peering through the steam.

"What is that?" Jayne muttered, leaning over the box and preparing to poke it with his fingers, before Simon warded him away like an annoyed teacher.

"That's a liver," Simon said, frowning. "But not a normal one."

Indeed, the mound of organic tissue did vaguely resemble a liver, but bloated in some parts and shriveled in others, with an off color that was a few shades too light to be healthy.

"A cloned liver," Book said, nodding. "Knife, please." Jayne grunted, and handed over Carlita. The preacher took the blade and stabbed into the bloated organ. As he cut around inside the liver, Book continued speaking.

"Probably from a low-quality growth vat. The cheaper kind tends to produce maybe one viable organ out of every twenty or thirty. The rest tend to get recycled into protein supplements for colonists or prisoners. Sometimes. On the worse moons, they get transplanted anyway. Other times, they're used to smuggle small items in with regular transplant shipments . . . ."

"Or," Zoë said, hearing that word in his tone. Book frowned, slicing and then reached into the organ with his other hand. A second later, he drew a small, flat box about nine centimeters long, with a small flashing blue light on the side.

_"Or,"_ he said.

"Transmitter," Mal said, recognizing the device. Book nodded, and walked out of the infirmary with the transmitter in hand.

"A high-powered one. Captain, if you'll do the honors," Book said as they stepped into the cargo bay, and he set the transmitter down. Mal nodded, and in a single smooth motion drew his pistol, sighted the device, and shot it. The box flipped over from the shot, the round punching through it. The blue light flared, sputtered, and finally died.

Mal turned to issue an order, but by that time Zoë had already reached the intercom.

"Wash, change course again," she ordered. "Hide us back on the trade route."

_"But we-" _he protested.

"Do it, dear," Zoë said, her voice edged with authoritative steel.

_". . . Right. Coming about."_

_Serenity_ shuddered slightly as Wash changed direction. A few seconds later, his voice came back.

_"That's funny," _he said. _"They're following our previous course. Not changing to follow us now."_

"Shiny," Mal said, thumbing the intercom. "Keep her steady. Just another bug on the sidewalk, understand?"

_"Right."_

Mal turned back toward Book, and nodded.

"Sharp eye, preacher," he said, and the Shepherd shrugged.

* * *

"So the entire time we were in that asteroid field, it was a setup?" Kaylee was incredulous, not wanting to believe that the entire nasty adventure they'd had with Reavers, an Alliance frigate, a half-destroyed Firefly, and Mal pulling a gun on the rest of the crew while Simon was dying, had all been because they'd been set up in an overwhelmingly elaborate sting.

"_Gorram_ Feds," Jayne muttered. "Got nothin' better to do than come up with dumbass clever traps."

They were all sitting or standing around the mess, which now stank of squeaky-clean disinfectants. River's condition had improved, as she was no longer disoriented, though she still seemed distant and disconnected.

"Clever enough for a sting," Simon said, nodding. "If I were in the business of catching organ smugglers, that's exactly what I would do. Take a throwaway cloned organ, pack it with a transmitter, and mix it in with a shipment and set up some smugglers to pick it up."

"Penalty for that is at least ten years," Zoë said.

"That was why those cruisers were waiting along the route," Wash added. "They knew we'd be headed to Silverhold."

"Which we are still en route toward, unless someone has a better notion," Mal added. He glanced toward Book. "We all got our preacher to thank for putting the pieces together, which, by the by, how did you figure it out?"

"A hunch," Book said, glancing toward River. Mal frowned, wondering just how much of that hunch he wasn't willing to share with them.

"Still don't solve the coin issue, though," Kaylee commented. "We ain't got enough for parts on Silverhold, and if the engine breaks down, we're drifting."

"Right, so we need to find a job," Mal said. He glanced to his side, where Inara was standing.

"You said you had one for us?" Mal asked, and she nodded.

"I do," she confirmed. "Though you'll have to let me sully myself in dealing with your petty thieving," she added, giving Mal a sideways glance and a smirk.

"What do you mean?" he asked, smiling back just as fake-sweetly. "I don't want you hurting your lofty reputation on account of _us_."

"If I don't put my reputation on the line," she replied, "We'll be staying on Silverhold for a long while, I believe."

"Right," Mal said, reluctantly agreeing with her. "So, what's the job?"

In response, Inara walked across the room and pressed a slot on the wall. Mal inhaled sharply as she easily pushed up on the panel, loosening it in just the right way to make the panel come free. He wasn't annoyed by the fact that she was able to open one of his secret compartments so much as he was bothered that she was about to prove something he'd asserted a long while ago dead wrong.

She glided back across the room to the table and set the bundle from inside the panel on the table, and unrolled it. She looked up at the faces around the room, a mixture of eager smiles and anticipation. Jayne in particular had a wolfish grin reserved for the most lucrative moments in his career as he stared at the legendary item on the table.

The Lassiter.

* * *

-

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_ Well, time to tie up that particular loose end. In fact, there's several loose ends that need tying, and some of them are at least going to be explored this arc.

This chapter was actually a bit slow, and I apologize for that, as some development was needed. The next few chapters will really set things up for the caper to come, though expect this arc to be one of the shorter ones in terms of actual chapters. This arc is going to be a little bit more light-hearted than previous ones, though as you've already seen there's going to be some hefty violence as well. At the same time, though, expect to see some real darkness in this story, as well. We're finally going to get a look at what's on Book's data needle, as well as start getting a real look into the Academy as I always envisioned it and the fundamental effects it has had on River. There's going to be a _lot_ of development for her in this arc, which should come as no surprise.

Also, expect a couple of old friends of our crew to show up soon.

Until next chapter . . . .


	41. Chapter Two: The Lie Of It

_**Author's Notes:**_ Long chapter.

* * *

_**Chapter Two: The Lie Of It  
**_

_Blood mixed with the red sand, congealing around falling bodies as the blade rose and fell._

_Nine and ten were so close that they gave a beautiful opportunity to demonstrate the value of efficiency. One man ducked behind the other, either in fear or out of simple elf-preservation, and the blade sank into one man's chest and struck the other in his heart._

_The figure tore the weapon free, kicking the closer man into the path of a stream of automatic fire from one of the more heavily-armed gunmen, and the blade flew out at the end of a pumping arm. It twirled through the air, striking another man in the chest and burying deep. Even as he gaped at the metal lodged in his chest, the figure ran in close, tearing the weapon free and spinning him around. The body flew back toward its comrades, knocking one down, and the blade-wielder followed, using it as a shield._

_Eleven._

_One of the closest men had a revolver, but was out of bullets, firing in a frantic terror at this impossibly fast opponent. He was pulling out a speed loader when his fingers went slack – as would be expected when a blade sliced through a man's neck and severed his head. The figure charged past, blood chasing it as it struck again, slicing through another man's torso and ripping out his lungs._

_Twelve and thirteen._

_The man buried under the body of his comrade tried to rise. The blade arced through the back of his neck as he stood, and he toppled to the dirt._

_Fourteen._

_In the span of fifteen seconds, twenty-five men were now eleven, and confidence had become sheer terror._

* * *

He sniffed the clean, wholesome air, and frowned at the unnaturalness of it all.

It was cold, which made his preference for a lengthy black jacket all the more useful. His boots scuffed on the polished floor as he moved down the corridor, walking along pristine passages that were kept cleaned to a mirror-shine by a legion of floor-waxing drones.

He smiled inwardly at the figure he struck. Everywhere he walked, he passed the finely pressed, perfectly spotless gray uniforms of the Fleet officers, or the buffed and clean armor plating of marines on guard duty, polished weapons held at the ready. Compared with the purity and the cleanliness and the overall air of controlled civility, there was something off-putting about a man with scuffed black boots, worn black gloves, and a weather-beaten old black leather stormcoat marked by the frayed badges of his office.

He liked making all these Alliance military people antsy by bringing his filthy, unpolished self onto their ships, even if he hated every other possible aspect of it.

The spotless glass doors outside the office slid open as he approached, and he glanced back at his two subordinates following him. He gave them a nod, and they waited outside. One was reed-thin, even skinnier than his boss, while the other was fat and pudgy, his good living showing through his own uniform.

That was what he liked about being in Allied Enforcement: less strict standards, which allowed him to recruit from a wider range of folk.

"Lieutenant," greeted the voice of the heavyset officer in the office. The man in the stormcoat nodded, and when the officer offered him the chair, he took it. The metal and vinyl didn't even squeak like a proper chair should have when he settled into it.

"Captain, sir," the lieutenant offered, nodding respectfully, doing his damndest to hide his disgust at the man sitting across from him. The officer was a desk-jockey who had never spent an hour in the field, and yet had somehow been shuffled into place to act as his superior. That made business . . . difficult.

"I've received your reports," the jowled captain replied, a frown appearing on his face. He held up a datapad, and made an obvious show of paging through the information. "I am disappointed."

"Sir?" the lieutenant asked, feigning shock. "I've been bringing in smugglers regularly over the past six months, I have no idea what-"

"Wetware smuggling is still an ongoing problem," the captain said, shaking his head. "The statistics have shown that we still have significant shipments of gene-enhancements still outgoing from all across Red Sun. And Fleet Command is getting serious about this, so they're coming down on Allied Enforcement."

"I've been trying to pick out some of the smugglers using trackers," the lieutenant replied, shrugging. "But whoever's behind the wetware smuggling is very good. I'm still trying to just pin down their contacts."

"Your sting operations to catch the smugglers have proved fruitless and costly," the captain said, setting down his pad and staring at the lieutenant with an obvious attempt at a harsh glare. "Fleet Command is breathing down my neck about how you keep diverting cruisers after smugglers. I just got notification that they completely _lost_ one group, because of your idiotic plan to hide transmitters inside wetware drops."

Well, of course he was diverting cruisers. That kept them off _his_ shipments. But naturally, he couldn't tell that to anyone.

"Sir, I-"

"Quiet. I'm not done yelling at you, lieutenant." The captain rose up in his chair, narrowing his eyes. "I've got orders directly from the top that we are to secure outgoing wetware at any cost. Rumors are flying around at the upper levels about Browncoats trying to get their hands on enhanced gene-tech and gene-samples. We have got to clamp down on this wetware issue, _now_."

The lieutenant stared, his mind racing. This was bad. Very bad. He'd been hoping the sting operations to catch a few smugglers would mollify the higher-ups and take the pressure off his people and the wetware-growers. Now . . . .

The captain settled back, and shook his head, before continuing.

"Fleet resources are spread thin. We don't have the capacity to interdict these damned gut-runners."

"Then sir, I suggest we hit them at their sources," the lieutenant said, hiding his internal scowl. Oh, this was going to cut into his profit margins, he realized, but he had a good fortune accumulated already. He could always start over elsewhere. Greenleaf sounded good.

"What do you mean?"

"I have a few sources, some contacts," the lieutenant said, shrugging. "I can run down some leads, see if I can figure out where the black-market labs are. Maybe then we can take them apart at the source. Keep the Fleet from getting involved."

"You think you can pull it off?" asked the captain, and the lieutenant nodded.

"It'll be tough, and I don't have a lot of people, but we'll make do," he replied. The captain nodded, and he sensed approval from the fat, stupid desk jockey. Play on his own issues - a lack of resources and manpower - and he'd get far in the sympathy department.

"Well then, get to it, lieutenant," the captain said, his tone dismissive, and the coated man rose, nodding again in salute. He started toward the door.

"And Womack."

Lieutenant Womack, officer of Allied Enforcement and one of the most vicious wetware smugglers in the 'Verse, turned to regard his superior.

"I want results, understand?"

"Of course, sir." Womack said, nodding again. He turned away before the scowl appeared on his face. He hissed under his breath as he stepped outside.

"_Of course_, you fat sack of _gose_."

His men stood up again as he walked outside and back into the corridors of the Alliance cruiser holding orbit over Silverhold.

"Boys," Womack said, glancing to them. "We've got work to do."

* * *

"One moment," Wash said, raising a hand. Everyone looked away from the definitively priceless artifact that had been hidden in their particular flying wreck for the last six months.

"Okay, as I recall, we've never been able to get rid of that thing," Wash said. "No one wants to buy it."

"That's the conundrum, I agree," Mal said, nodding. He turned back toward Inara. "I'm conjure Inara's got a solution?"

"Indeed," she said, nodding. "To be honest, the problem we've had with fencing the Lassiter-"

"Problem I've had, you mean," Mal interrupted.

"_We've_ had," she repeated, staring at him pointedly, "is that all the fences that we normally use for business are too . . . petty."

Mal snorted, though nods came from everyone else, save River, who was now rising unsteadily to her feet. Simon and Kaylee both broke off to check on her, and Jayne's attention shifted between the developing caper and the little knot of people.

"When dealing with high-level crime on the scale of theft and sale of valuable artifacts, art pieces, jewelry, and the like, one requires a higher standard of criminal to sell to." Inara gestured to the Lassiter. "The Lassiter is universally known. No petty fence or thief wants to deal with it, as they don't have the money to unload on even a tenth of its value, let alone have the contacts to sell it. And we never received Saffron's list of buyers on Persephone before we were betrayed by her."

"So, I take it you have another possibility?" Zoë asked, and Inara nodded.

"I thought you weren't one for criminals and the like," Mal put in, and she rolled her eyes a hair.

"Crime exists at all levels of society," she explained. "It's just that when you're involved with crime among the upper echelons, it tends to be more polite and involve far greater sums of money."

"So, we're heading into respectable theft, as opposed to petty theft?" Mal asked, and Inara shrugged, a tiny gesture of her shoulders, while her smile never wavered.

"Correct."

"Always wanted to graduate to stealing finery and shuffling poor folk's credits for myself," Mal said, smirking at her.

"If we could stop with the not-so-subtle trading of barbs for maybe a second," Wash said, effectively smashing the verbal fencing match in the face with a sledgehammer, "who are we fencing this to?"

"His name is Shin Yan Dumont," Inara said. "A well-known dealer in priceless artifacts. Most of these artifacts disappear from collections and museums some time before they end up in his hands."

"He steals them?" Book asked, curious.

"Not that I am aware of," Inara replied, shrugging again. "I don't know the man personally, but I have heard of him. He sells various artifacts at auctions once per year. The next auction is coming in two weeks, and will be held on Silverhold, at his mansion."

She glanced around the room, noting the expressions on everyone's faces. Wash was interested, and Jayne had been drawn back to the table at the mention of large sums of money. Mal and Zoë, however, had darker expressions on their faces.

"Dumont," Zoë said, frowning, and glanced toward Mal, who nodded.

"You've heard of him?" Wash asked, catching the moment between the pair.

"There was a commodore of the Alliance fleet, operating in Red Sun during the war," Zoë said. "Named Dumont. Wherever he went, pirates usually followed. No one ever linked him to them, but in areas he was campaigning in, there were a lot more slave raids than normal. Whole villages disappeared overnight in the chaos of the fighting."

"Probably how he made his fortune," Mal said. "Guess he graduated from petty theft of humans to high-class theft of shiny things, is that right?"

"There have been rumors, yes," Inara said, nodding. "No one has ever connected him to any of the crime on Silverhold."

"So, what's the plan?" Jayne asked. "We just gonna offload the Lassiter on him, make a chunk of money?"

"That's the basic idea, yes," Inara replied. "He always buys artifacts cheaply. We're probably going to get only a miniscule fraction of the Lassiter's actual value here. Forty, perhaps fifty thousand credits at most."

The mess hall went dead silent at that. The only noise came from behind the group as Simon and Kaylee led a slightly-off-balance River to the table.

Fifty thousand credits may have been a tiny fraction of the Lassiter's value, but that much money would put _Serenity_ comfortably in the green for six months, minimum, even after splitting it amongst the whole crew.

"I take it you've got more planned than just selling the Lassiter his way," Mal mused, and Inara nodded.

"From what I know, Dumont only deals in hard currency at his auctions," she explained. "No data transfers. It makes it harder to track his money. All auctions involve direct transactions of gold, platinum, or hard credits. A typical auction should end with Dumont having millions of credits in hard currency on hand, in addition to his personal wealth."

More silence, this time punctuated with wide eyes and a few slack jaws, excepting Jayne, who looked for all the world like a tiger diving headfirst into a swimming pool of steaks.

"And we're hitting his vault," Jayne said, "for every penny he owns, after the auction?"

"Exactly," she said. "We do this right, and we clean out millions of credits." She glanced toward Mal. "Assuming we're not too petty for such high-class crime?"

Mal cleared his throat, and finally smirked.

"As much as it goes against my code of personal thieving honor to go swimming in credits," Mal said, "I think I'm in."

* * *

The buzzing was gone, and she felt more _clear and clean _than she had in a while.

Stability was present. More importantly, crime was afoot.

The curiosity _tingled_. How _does crime _have _**feet**_? It doesn't _dance_, though perhaps it tip-toes, and it could certainly leap.

"So, what do we do?" Jayne asked, his words and mind echoing with eagerness. Visions of multicolored money danced through his head.

"I assume the job is coinciding with the auction?" Simon asked, and Inara nodded. River saw the **cold** analysis in his eyes, the breaking down of problems into individual solutions, a process that came unbidden _yet welcome_. He approached the situation like it was surgery, just as he approached everything in the belief in a definite solution.

Such things gave him strength, but robbed him of it at the same time.

River frowned and stopped thinking on the _scents_ and _flavors_ of their books, instead listening to words and voices.

"Ideally," Inara replied. "His security will be busiest at that time."

"If that's the case, this job might be very complicated," Simon added. "It'll take some time to prepare. Do you know when the auction is?"

"Two weeks from now," she replied.

"That should be plenty of time," Zoë said, and Mal nodded, looking around the room. Plans spun in his mind, like _cascading plasma conduits _and **electron generators**.

"Okay, folks," he said. "We're not due on Silverhold for another couple of days, so we need to get as much planning done as we can before we set down."

"We're going to need information," Simon said, crossing his arms. The **cold **and** clinical **and the _**planning**_ coiled about and _digested _the issues as quickly as they rose up in his stomach. They tore into _the questions _like a fresh steak.

River blinked, closing her eyes. She was getting hungry now that she'd voided her own tummy.

"Doc, you plannin' on using that criminal brain of yours?" Jayne asked. She caught his _frown_ in the afterimage of his mind.

"Well, we need the money," Simon said, shrugging. "If no one has an issue with it, I can help handling the planning stages . . . ."

"Doc, you pulled one of the best jobs we've ever done," Mal said. "I got no trouble with you handling this job 'fore we set down." Simon nodded, and she felt a flush of pride at everyone relying on her brother.

"Okay. This will probably be a lot more difficult than the heist at Saint Lucy's on Ariel, if only because I'm not as familiar with the grounds. The first thing we need for this operation is information. Layout, blueprints, the like."

"Silverhold's government offices should have planning information for the estate grounds," Book added, and Simon nodded.

The _ripples_ of surprise _chimed_ around the room, _**distorting and blurring **_pages for a heartbeat. The Shepherd offering help, of any sort, in their thieving?

He'd abandoned his most solemn oaths already, she knew. This was a tiny step for him by comparison. He may have justified _the commandment's _violation, but that didn't change anything.

"If Dumont is half as crooked as we're 'specting," Kaylee said, "he'll have changed most of the layout from what's official."

"Agreed," Simon said, nodding again, and other sounds of approval echoed around the room. "We'll need hands-on observation. There's a lot of information we'll need. Security systems, number and patrol patterns of security personnel, any changes made to the layout, location of the vault . . . ."

That _rang_ in her thoughts. A _**ray of relevance **_trickled through _the mists_.

"Inara," Mal chimed in, "You're going to be selling the Lassiter to Dumont personally, right?"

"Yes," she said. "I was hoping that we could get an inside look at his mansion while doing so."

"Good thinking," Simon said. "Though we'd need to conduct an extensive observation of the patrol patterns, and the number of servants and domestic staff. I have no idea how we'll do that during the sale. We'd need sophisticated surveillance equipment."

"No."

Everyone looked across the table. River leaned against the table, and she felt her brow furrowing as she understood their needs, and how she fit in.

"You don't," she said, and glanced to Mal. The captain slowly nodded, understanding _sounding_ in his **drum** of a brain.

"Albatross is right," he said. "We _don't_." Simon frowned, even as _**understanding **__billowed _about the mess.

"What do you mean?" her brother asked.

"Counter-surveillance works by intercepting known devices for observation and preventing them from being utilized to scan and compile data on the area in question." She heard the _**distance**_ in her voice echoed in their thoughts. "It only works when being used to counter known technology and methodology."

She blinked, her eyes focusing. Everyone seemed to have been lost in the long words, except Book and Zoë. She explained it to them in **bolder** strokes.

"They can't block my brain."

* * *

_Two days later_

"Well, have a look at that," Mal said, peering out the shuttle's front window as it dipped down into the atmosphere of Silverhold, heat rippling off its bow and partially obscuring his vision.

"I've never been to this world before," Inara said, standing over Mal's shoulder. He had insisted he fly, still remembering Inara's comment that he never could fly her shuttle on her personal settings. Taking that as he usually did, Mal was intent on proving her wrong.

On the display, they could see the marker that was _Serenity_ moving off, disappearing among the thousands of commercial transports flying above the planet. It pointedly kept its distance from the Alliance cruiser Amerigo, which was in the middle of station-keeping orbit high over the world.

And below them, stretching out before the descending shuttle was the rather stark majesty of Silverhold.

The planet earned its name from the glittering clouds of fog that filled its entire lower elevations, a shiny reflective mass of particles that hung around the base of the mountains like a wispy sea of silver. Those particles were the results of complex chemical reactions that were caused by interactions between terraforming technology and local chemical compounds in the planetary crust. The heavy fog that came about was distinctly poisonous to human life, rendering any attempt at settling anywhere at the lower elevations a moot endeavor. All of the planet's major cities were set on mountaintops and plateaus, with vast urban landscapes spreading over mountain ranges.

"An unfortunate education," came a mumble from River, who was standing behind Inara, peering out at the approaching planet.

"Planet's nearly a black rock, I agree," Mal said. He was clad in a black suit, the nicest outfit he could dredge up from his collection of personal semi-formality. Beside Inara's elegant silks he looked a fool, which was the usual, he'd learned. The suit fit about him uncomfortably, and he wished he'd had his favored brown coat and suspenders, but he recognized the need to wear niceties, if only to avoid getting the upturned nose from the rich folks.

Getting an upturned nose tended to lead to disagreements, of the knuckles-meeting-nose variety.

Mal glanced back to River, and tried not to stare at the difference in appearance from what he was used to.

Her long hair had been combed and washed, going from a loose collection of curly frazzle to a dark, wavy ponytail that was collected at the nape of her neck. She wore Simon's pair of dark red sunglasses, and a mixture of a semi-formal black blouse Inara had stashed away, along with one of Simon's vests and trousers, which Kaylee had cut back to fit her shorter legs. The result was a businesslike outfit and appearance that looked completely incongruous with his normal image of her.

If possible, she seemed even less comfortable in her outfit than Mal did, fiddling with the ponytail braid incessantly.

"You don't like that, Albatross?" Mal asked, and she frowned, pulling her hand away from the hair's clip.

"Constrains my hair," she muttered.

"At least she's not trying to smear off the makeup," Inara said with a smile, and River frowned again. Inara had applied a very light layer of makeup to River's face, matching her already pale skin, as well as an equally light shade of lipstick. It didn't make her stand out, but it did wipe away some of the slight imperfections in her skin, and as a result she seemed both younger and much, much older.

"I don't like the lie of it," she muttered.

"Well, that's the whole point," Mal said.

"I understand my role," she said. "Be nondescript, but not so much that I draw attention. I dislike the paradox of the lie."

It was true enough, he admitted. Inara had pointed out that the easiest way to make someone not stand out in a high social setting was to make them nondescript by those standards. Being too nondescript and unremarkable drew attention in such circles, while being just pretty and well-dressed enough to pass as a mere aide or bodyguard resulted in folks overlooking you.

That was the intricacy of the deception, at least as far as Inara explained. Mal looked out of place in his frippery; he would draw suspicion and disdainful attention. Meanwhile, Inara, as well-dressed and glamorous as she was, would draw desire and admiration toward her beauty. River, dressed just well enough to fit in and just prettied enough to be passable, would be thus completely ignored, as long as she didn't draw attention to herself.

And that was the whole point. The very last thing any of them wanted was River to be noticed as she went about her work.

Inara considered how difficult it had been to get the girl in that state of mind and dress. While River had always shown a curiosity toward her shuttle and its contents, especially during their sporadic therapy sessions, she'd been very reluctant this time, even with Kaylee coaxing her along. Inara remembered how she'd daintily stepped into the shuttle, her every motion hinting at her uncertainty.

* * *

"_Come on, let's get you lookin' nice," Kaylee had said, leading her friend into the room by the hand. "'Nara'll take a comb to that hair, make you look real pretty."_

_Inara understood why River was hesitant. Her body language and the way she carried herself, especially during the therapy sessions, told her all she needed to know. River had a complex about her physical appearance, and a fixation on clothes and hairstyle that emphasized her youth and childhood – like she was trying to get back her stolen years, even while trying to grow up at the same time. Her odd fashion choices varied between girlish outfits to raiding Wash's supply of tropical shirts, yet she was very deliberate about choosing her appearance for herself._

_It was all a matter of control, she knew, and a need for self-assertion. Thus, being in a situation where someone else was shaping her hair and clothes and appearance, even people she trusted like Inara and Kaylee, didn't sit well with her._

_The Companion knew all this without having to ask a single question. In fact, over the last months she'd learned much about River, and had noted a subtle change in her in the week since her birthday, seeing a surety and strength that had not been there before._

"_Come in, _mei-mei_," Inara had said as they stepped into the shuttle. River slowly drifted inside, hovering and looking about._

"_So, what do ya think we should do, 'Nara?" Kaylee asked, comparatively oblivious to the more subtle cues of her friend's body language. She could tell if a machine was working right from the slightest touch or the tiniest sound, but her people-reading skills were less developed, at least with noting something as quiet as River's hesitation. "I think it would look good done up, like a fancy lady, y'think?"_

"_Perhaps," Inara had replied, guiding River to a chair. "What do you think, River?" She kept her voice gentle, wanting to let the girl make the choice as to hairstyle._

_The effect was subtle but dramatic. River's movements slowed and became more relaxed, and Inara guessed correctly that the cause of her nervousness was the lack of control she'd feared._

"_It prefers to be free," she admitted, and Inara nodded as she ran a hand through the girl's curled, unkempt hair. It was something she'd expect from a little girl who liked to play in the mud and rain – a tomboy's hairstyle. And River didn't seem to like the idea of bottling it up or cutting it; in the last year she'd never cut her hair. She rarely even washed it, Inara realized._

_Was it a lack of concern, she wondered, or something deeper and ingrained from her trauma?_

"_Something simple, then," Inara suggested. "A braid starting here, at the nape?" River mused over it, fiddling with one of Inara's combs, while Kaylee hovered nearby, obviously enjoying the idea of her friend finally getting to do some honest girl-stuff._

"_Maybe we could trim it back a bit, neaten it up some," Kaylee suggested, and River frowned._

"_I can extrude hair, but I can't retract it," she said, brow furrowing. After a second's confusion, she continued. "I like it long."_

"_One of the matrons on Sihnon had hair nearly four meters long," Inara said with a light laugh. "It took some creativity to make it fit without tripping herself or dragging it on the floor. Hm." She continued to inspect the tangled mess that was the girl's hair. "First, we have to wash it."_

"_The bathroom is too smooth," River responded, her words sounding like an apology. "The chair and counter is cold."_

"_That's fine," Inara replied, her tone reassuring. Kaylee took a moment to work her meaning out before nodding to herself. They knew River hated the bathroom for the same reason she hated the infirmary, which was why her hair was usually in such disarray._

"_Well, let's see what we can do about your face," Kaylee suggested, moving to Inara's dresser to find some makeup. "You'd look extra pretty with a bit of a touch-up . . . ."_

* * *

And with that, they had managed to make an eighteen-year-old schizophrenic look like a professional accountant in her mid-twenties. Though Inara didn't consider it anything beyond her skills, Mal seemed most impressed.

River, however, seemed more lost than usual, buried in a false role and clothes she didn't seem to like. That fact wasn't lost on either Mal or Inara, and they were both concerned as to whether she could carry her part.

At that thought, she glanced back up at Inara, and her expression became unreadable. Her normally emotive face became locked up like a machine, eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. Her shoulders squared, and she sat up straight. Without saying anything, that simple change in expression and posture spoke volumes.

The shuttle bucked slightly, and Mal muttered under his breath.

"Trouble?" Inara asked, to which Mal shook his head.

"Nah. Just gas turbulence from the lower depths."

Another issue caused by the terraforming was the gravity alteration, which resulted in massive changes to tides and weather patterns. The lower gas clouds were often rocked by turbulent storms, one of which they were flying over.

"Crazy planet to pick to live on," Mal commented.

"Probably why so few people live here," Inara replied. They passed a few mountain-peak settlements, medium sized towns and small cities, none of which passed more than a quarter of a million people. The capital city was the largest city on the planet and it boasted less than a million people due to the awkward geography of the planet.

"And there's our destination," Mal said after a few minutes, slowly dropping altitude. Ahead of them was the surest sign of the stupidly rich one could ask for: a flock of floating sky-islands, hovering a couple of kilometers above the gas clouds - as low as they'd be willing to fly their homes.

"Don't get why folk would want their own floating island, and then keep it at these altitudes," Mal said as they passed through the outer security network. They were pinged by security drones and then allowed through once they transmitted Inara's identification.

Inara didn't have an answer for Mal's question. It probably tied in with why anyone would want to live on Silverhold anyway. She suspected that more than half the islands out there were owned by people involved in less-than-reputable business.

They circled around one particular island, which popped up on the shuttle's registry as belonging to Dumont. Mal frowned as he looked over the island, noting that it was almost entirely urbanized, three circular acres of mansion and surrounding buildings, with barely any greenery to speak of. The building itself was designed with that funny white spiral-ish architecture he'd seen on countless Core-world advertisements, and the surrounding buildings at the edges of the island seemed like lumpy gray blocks in comparison.

"Go to all the trouble to have a floating island and put nothing but ugly buildings on it," he muttered.

"Save your ire," River advised, and he glanced her way again, surprised at the cold way she'd just said that.

"This isn't ire," Mal said. "I got plenty of ire; just I'm warming up to it. Start off with some mild annoyance, work my way up to real annoyance, and then we get to ire."

A couple of seconds of silence passed.

"That sounds better when Wash says it," River commented.

Mal frowned and went back to making sure they didn't die a fiery death because of Inara's strange shuttle operation preferences. He brought the vessel around to a large series of landing pads on the west side of the island, making sure to note the arrangement and types of vessels present.

"They get a lot of traffic here," he remarked. "This landing zone is big enough for a couple of cargo transports."

"Dumont ostensibly does shipping work," Inara reminded him. "That's probably what all of those buildings are for."

"Doesn't strike me as very clever to put your business next to your home," Mal said with another confused scowl as he settled down. Neither Inara nor River remarked on the irony of the captain of a transport ship making that comment. They rose, Mal pausing to make sure his clothes were smoothed out, and noticing both of the women didn't seem to have that problem.

Good. He was playing his part to perfection before they'd even stepped off the shuttle.

* * *

The familiar scent of heavy sweat filled the cargo bay, which was the first warning to Kaylee when she entered that Jayne was hard at work. She lightly walked into the bay from the upper levels, humming to herself, and heard the grunting as the mercenary pumped heavy iron by his weight bench, doing double bicep curls with weights as wide around as his upper arms.

"Kaylee," Jayne grunted as she walked past, smiling his way. "Ya think the caper's goin' fine?"

"I suppose," she said, shrugging. "Cap'n and 'Nara know what they're doin', and they got River with 'em, so no problem's gonna give 'em grief, I think."

"Yeah, suppose," Jayne muttered, scowling, and that made Kaylee pause.

"What's the matter?" she asked, and Jayne shook his head. Kaylee thought on that a moment, wondering why he'd be looking so . . . well, glum wasn't the word, nor was it depressed. Worried?

Yeah, that was it. He looked a tiny bit worried.

"What's the matter?" she asked, and he grunted again.

"This don't sit well," he said, as much to himself as to her. That made her frown some more, and she wondered what would make him feel unpleasant about the job. He'd never had this sort of thinking when Mal or Inara were about on work, which meant-

Oh. _Oh_.

"Well, okay then," she said, moving past him, and smiling inside as she moved out of the bay toward the common room beyond.

Jayne was _worried_ about River.

* * *

_The shuttle door opened, Inara stepped outside, followed by Kaylee, who was leading River, now clad in he businesswoman's outfit Inara had so carefully selected and Kaylee had prepared. Mal was walking up the catwalk, wearing his formalwear, but slowed as he caught sight of his Albatross in makeup and all prettied. A smile came to him, then - not the smarmy grin he liked to affect, but an honest one, if only for a moment._

_The others soon gathered in the cargo bay to go over the short version of the plan, and everyone's reaction to the shift in River's features was swift and apparent. Book had given an honest, fatherly smile, which River answered with a nervous one of her own, while Zoë seemed quietly pleased. Simon had seemed momentarily flabbergasted at the shift in River's demeanor and appearance, before pulling her into a hug. Kaylee had caught a look on his face, one of memories of the past, and she knew he was remembering River as she once was._

_Wash gave her an exaggerated look of suspicion, with his hands on his hips, and demanded to know where his navigator was, and who the mysterious young lady who had replaced her had come from._

_The only one who hadn't seemed pleased was Jayne, who had stayed to the rear and watched it all pass, with that same look of annoyed worry that he was showing now._

* * *

Kaylee thought it was sweet. It was one thing for him to tolerate River, and to protect her like he protected anyone else on the crew. It was another altogether for him to be worried and annoyed when she was away where he couldn't keep an eye on her. He was acting less like a mercenary paid to watch over them all and more like an aloof uncle or mean, protective big brother.

That made an already cheery mechanic feel even better, which doubled over when she stepped into the infirmary where Simon was checking his medicines. She slipped in quietly like Jayne had taught her, and she wrapped him up in a big surprise hug. He started to protest, but that ended sometime between the nibbling of his ear and the nuzzling of the crook of his neck.

A few minutes later, they were leaning back on the couch in the common room, the medicine forgotten, and she was curled up by him with her head resting on his shoulder.

"You worried?" she asked him, and he sighed. Her fingers played across his chest, and she made a point to keep them away from the wound he'd suffered a couple weeks ago.

"I'm always worried when River leaves," he said. "But Inara's with her, and so is the Captain. The only other way I could ask for her to be safer is if Jayne or Zoë went along."

"Jayne?" Kaylee echoed, a bit surprised to hear that from Simon of all folk. "Wouldn't think you'd be cheery about letting him ride with River."

"A few months ago, I'd agree," Simon said, nodding. "But Jayne and I had an . . . agreement, some time ago. We weren't going to like each other, but we would trust each other. And when River was . . . taken, Jayne was with her, and he protected her." Simon paused, closing his eyes, and Kaylee rubbed his chest.

"He's more tolerant of her now, and I can trust him to watch her, and that's a good thing, by my estimation," Simon concluded. "We need fewer complications."

"Yeah, as we're expectin' in less than a year," Kaylee added, and he nodded again. "Little one's coming along?"

"The baby is developing well," Simon said. "As long as Zoë keeps out of trouble, the child shouldn't have any complications, though I do agree with Wash and the Captain that one is enough."

That made Kaylee frown; that wasn't what she wanted to hear.

"You're sure 'bout that?" she asked, leading him along.

"I'll admit that River is already enough of a handful, and another kid needing looking after is going to make things worse-"

"River's not a kid!" Kaylee said, feeling a small spike of indignation and anger flare up, despite herself, and she sat up. She stared at her Simon's face, glaring at him, and he quietly recoiled from that look. Part of her wanted to stop, but Simon needed to see things straight.

"I know she's your little sister, and she's got her problems, but she's not a baby, and you need to stop treatin' her as such!" He stared back, a bit slack-jawed at the outburst, so she kept on. "She's eighteen now and she's saved us all on this crew so many times, and she's even saved you twice now 'gainst Reavers and the like. She's growin' up into a woman and she can't have you thinkin' on her like she's still a baby, or she ain't gonna know what she should be."

Simon simply stared back at Kaylee, and as he did so, she realized how much she'd just blown up at him without warning. He began to flub out something resembling an apology, but she cut him off with one of her own.

"Simon, I . . . ." She leaned back and shook her head, and found one of her hands playing with his shirt. "I'm sorry, I just . . . ." She managed a smile. "You should have seen how happy she was when 'Nara and me got her and were dressing her up. She liked it. Liked looking pretty, like a woman. And here you are, saying she's still a kid, and I dunno why, but that just . . . ."

His hand rose up and took hers, and he nodded. He opened his mouth, about to speak, but he held it for a second, that thoughtful, somewhat uncertain look in his eyes that meant he was carefully considering what to say. She loved that look enough to just let him figure out what he wanted to say in response.

"I think," he started, then paused again.

"I think that you're right," he finally said. He looked down for a heartbeat. "I love her, but now that I think on it, every time I look at her, there's this little bit of me that wishes she was . . . like she was before. That sees her like she was four years ago, in that cheery white dress, all smiles and life and . . . ." He trailed off, eyes distant, and then they focused back on her.

"And I still see it in her," he said. "She's still clinging to it, I always figured. And I wanted to bring that back, even though some part of me says I can't. That part of me tells me she's going to live with this forever, with this trauma and these memories. And there's this bit of me that reminds me every time I feel these mixed emotions that she feels them too, and I'm helping make her confused."

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back,

"I don't know, honestly," he said. "I want to bring back my baby sister, but I know she's not fourteen anymore. That I can't get her back, and all I have is her as she is now-"

"Simon," Kaylee hissed again, and he blinked. "That's cruel!"

"What?"

"Thinkin' that who she is now is all you've got, like you're only settlin' for something less than you had before! That ain't right!"

He stared back at her for a few seconds, and then looked away, eyes widening. He took a sharp, understanding intake of air, and Kaylee felt sorry for saying it, even if it was the truth. If Simon was thinking that River was less than she had been – even if it weren't intentional – then River would be picking up on that, and that would hurt her self-esteem even more.

"Kaylee, I . . . ." he said, and closed his eyes, hands rising to his temples. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, you didn't mean nothin' by it," she said, leaning back in close. "You're right in that River's changed since she was little, and she's been hurt bad, but she ain't been broken, and she's gotten stronger.

"She'll still need you there," Kaylee continued. "Need you to patch up her hurt and give her a rock to lean on. And she'll need us all, but she's growin' up and is gonna need us to treat her like a woman 'stead of a child."

He was silent on that, but nodded, and she let him guide her back down beside him and rest her head on his shoulder.

She wanted to keep talking to him, to steer the conversation in the direction she'd intended, but he already had a lot on his mind.

Maybe later, they could talk about adding more little ones to _Serenity's_ family, but it was too early. For now, she'd just be happy to be with him.

* * *

The good: she was pretty.

That was a rare thing. Before the **cold years**, she'd always been gussied up by the house servants or her mother, made to wear _pretty_ and comb her hair and _look like a good girl_. .

_**Annoying.**_

Then they had put her in _**cages with needles**_, where no one _cared_ about shampoo or makeup, where the **functional** became a _prison_ and _**the mind **_became a **playground** for _needles and cutting_. When the _**light**_ came back, there was only _drifting_, only a desire to be _loose _and_ to be free _and pull the _**pieces **_together. There was no desire to be pretty, or to look like a girl of her years.

But that was _previous_. This was current. _Tip-toe steps _into _experimentation_ as to humanity, _reality_, _**adulthood**_. Inara _held her hand _even as she combed her hair and made her feel better by letting her prepare herself.

And they all liked it. They liked to see her as an adult. Even if it was a **mask**, it made her happy to _drink in _her families' _happy_ too.

Now she lingered in a facsimile of womanhood, but still didn't understand it.

She lingered in the _**event horizon **_between the **lie** and the **truth**, between River and the _other identity _and **name** and _persona_. The _**coat**_ of the false person she was to become draped over her shoulders, but she had yet to put her arms _in the sleeves_.

Truth is subjective, she told herself.

_there is a name. that name is __**you**__. that name is __**truth**__._

_what __**once was **__is not the truth. all that is __**previous**__ must be discarded for your name is __**truth**__and your __**name is false**__ and_

_there was a __**truth**__? Or is there _no truth_?_

_The truth is me. the truth is __other than you__._

_The truth is a lie._

A paradox that is distracting_, but you don't have time to dwell on it._

_Let River __sleep__. While she sleeps, you will be . . . ._

Allison.

* * *

Inara took the lead, as they'd agreed, opening the door and stepping out onto the landing pad, with Mal following and River taking the rear. He'd expected the familiar smells of an average spaceport - the stench of smoke and fuel, or sunlight burning tarmac. Instead, a metallic scent filled the air, along with sharp, cold winds that ruffled his hair and threw Inara's back. As he stepped down onto the landing pad, Mal caught sight of several figures approaching, and for the first time came face-to-face with one of the most notorious Alliance officers in history.

"Inara Serra!" the man called, his deep voice warm and inviting and somehow making Mal's skin crawl. He was tall and thin, with weathered features and thin wrinkles on his face. He had pepper-colored hair, just showing enough gray to be perfectly venerable, a thick mustache, and dark eyes that hinted at deep intelligence. Behind him loomed several bodyguards in fine gray uniforms, sidearms prominent at their waists.

"Shin Yan Dumont," Inara said, giving a slight bow. Despite his name, there was barely a hint of Asian heritage in any of his features, which was not unlike River or Simon.

"Oh, please, I don't hover on formality," the man said, voice loud and clear and boisterous, yet still with that inflection that made Mal uneasy. He extended a hand to Inara, who took it, and he gently kissed the back of her palm.

"Don't," River hissed, voice barely audible over the wind, and Mal hesitated.

Only then did he realize he wanted to step forward and smash both sets of knuckles into Dumont's finely-crafted mustache.

"And I see you brought more guests to the pleasure of my home," Dumont added, and Mal took his cue.

"Captain Malcolm Reynolds," he introduced himself, hoping Dumont wouldn't want to shake hands. Said hopes were dashed when he extended a hand toward Mal, who quickly took it, if only to be polite. A solid grip and strong, double shake followed.

"Inara spoke of you," he said. "She assured me you played an integral role in all of this."

"I simply fly the ship," he replied, injecting enough modesty to make him back off. Dumont smiled and nodded.

"Oh, I suspect you do far more." He looked to the other side of Inara. "And who is our other guest here?" He stepped toward River, extending a hand her way.

"Allison Doerner," River replied, and Mal had to keep from looking her way in surprise. The cool, inflectionless tone she spoke in was so at odds from what he knew, and the equally cool accent echoed pure Core. He knew she was good at mimicking accents, but had never heard it firsthand.

She didn't take Dumont's hand, instead clasping both palms before her over the handle of the briefcase, a pointed reminder of their business.

"I am here as Miss Serra's accountant and witness to this transaction," she continued.

"Of course," Dumont said, retracting his hand and nodding to her. "Well, then, I bid you welcome to my island. Come inside, out of this chill!"

They made their way across the landing pad to a small hovercar, which shuttled them off of the pad and into an underground chamber. Mal silently cursed the inability to get a look at the grounds, but he hoped River was up to the task of giving them the information they needed. The trip was short, but even so Dumont didn't stop his effusive talking.

"I apologize for the lack of preparation for this," Dumont said, settling back into the richly appointed leather seat across from them. "Even though I don't like protocol, there is still a degree of decorum to be expected. We've just been very busy these last weeks."

"Yeah, I hear something special's coming up in a bit," Mal said, leading the conversation, and Dumont laughed.

"Oh, yes. Two weeks from now we're having a very special function. An auction."

"So I heard," Mal said. "Awful lot of preparation time for just an auction."

"Oh, it's not just, I assure you," Dumont said. "It's the social event of the season. I've got people coming in from all over the system. The upper crust of society under one roof. Huge gala."

"Sounds like my kind of party," Mal said, giving him his best fake smile.

"I can spare some invites for you, if you'd like," Dumont offered.

"We'd be delighted," Inara said, and the older man laughed again.

A moment later, the car came to a halt, and they stepped outside onto the entrance to the main mansion, and what followed was an ostentatious barrage of rich finery that mal didn't know whether to be jealous of or simply annoyed by. They entered a huge foyer festooned with marble and gilded silver everywhere, with pillars carved of red and white stone native to the planet and smoothed to a mirror's sheen. He led them through a long gallery of exquisite paintings, pointing out his favorites as he walked along.

Mal tried to both drink it all in and memorize everything as they passed through galleries and hallways, along balconies overlooking a massive ballroom, and upstairs toward the offices. He had to move between paying attention as Dumont droned on in his effusive, creepy voice and paying attention to his surroundings. He managed to spare a quick glimpse River's way as they walked, but he couldn't tell if she was doing the same. Her eyes remained forward behind her sunglasses, the briefcase swaying beside her in time to her walk, looking for all the 'Verse like a young businesswoman and not a mentally-scarred teenager.

"Very loud," she whispered under her breath.

"Yeah, that he is," Mal said, voice unheard under the volume of Dumont's continued monologue.

"Not just him," she whispered, and for a moment, he heard _River_ in there, not the "Allison" persona she was playing.

Before he could ask her to clarify, Dumont led them into an elevator that had more gilded surfaces in it than he was certain was legal. He glanced down at his shoes, and found even the thin carpet of the elevator was shiny with gold.

How much wealth can one man waste? he thought ruefully.

* * *

To be **someone **_**one **__isn't _was difficult. The _**twisting hair **_and the _**constraining clothes **_and the _falseness_ hung about like a _**wet blanket**_, stifling and controlling.

The mind _spread_ outward, in all directions. _Allison_ was a _**mask**_ that lingered in the body, while _River_ roamed the halls, _**dancing among the silver clouds **_and tasting of their horrid, noxious gases without over exposing a delicate nasal hair to the **killing glitter**.

The _**awareness**_ retracted just as quickly, _bouncing_ through galleries and _running_ along walls like a bad Sihnon _wuxia_ movie. Locked doors **were paper tigers**, ident scans and thermal sensors did nothing to deflect a _**ghost **_in a **mask** hundreds of meters away.

_Thoughts_ and _presence_ and _movement_ came and went, filed away and analyzed and memorized. The mind was a machine, a machine of _wetness _and _gray_ and _**electonic impulses**_ and **stabbing spikes **of _**pain**_ and _**needles**_ _**and**_-

**Steady**. Lock onto Captain Hammer. Hold steady.

_You are Allison._

_Now, let River run the halls again. Down, down into the corridors and the passages and the security and __**there**__, into the gallery hidden below and __**there**__._

The vault. _Step inside the vault_.

Open it up.

* * *

Dumont didn't stop, talking about the engineering that went into his home, and Inara nodded along, playing the rapt listener to perfection, asking questions at the right moments to keep Dumont going. Mal followed the conversation, watching with his own fascinated attention at how Inara kept Dumont rolling along, using her subtle "feminine wiles" to keep his attention firmly fixed on her. He'd rarely actually seen Inara play anyone before, and seeing her really in action like this was a sobering sight, if only because it reminded him of how Saffron had played him so easily.

"Well," Dumont said as they stepped off the elevator and moved down a hallway into his opulent office. "You've had the tour, and now we get down to business."

He paused, looking back, and Mal followed his gaze. He silently cursed.

River was staring at the carpet, eyes no doubt unfocused in another momentary mood. He guessed she was searching the mansion and lost track of where she was.

"Miss Allison?" Mal called, and she looked up, snapping her eyes toward him in a way that unnervingly reminded him of an automated gun turret.

"I apologize," she said, all coolness and accents again, stepping off the elevator. "You gilded gold into your carpet. Curious."

"Yes," Dumont said, smiling. "I always appreciate taking things a . . . little further." He led them inside, to sit behind a desk that Mal suspected four separate trees had died to build, and took an hour to polish so perfectly. They settled down into plush chairs that Mal felt himself sink into before stopping.

The door slid shut, and Dumont hit a button on his desk. An electronic beeping filled the room for a second, and then stopped. With the electronic security barrier set up, they continued.

"Very well. I pray you have what we agreed to?"

Right on cue, River lifted her briefcase and set it on the table. She flipped it open, to reveal a datpad and a long metal case. She removed the case and opened it.

"Ah," Dumont said, smiling. "Yes, that's it. The Lassiter. Exactly like the vids and captures have shown it." He reached toward the case, but paused. "If you don't mind?"

"Please," Inara said, and Dumont took the heavy, boxy laser pistol out of its case.

"I don't suppose it still works?" he asked.

"We haven't tested it," Inara lied.

"Very well," he said. "Forty thousand, captain. For a man of your means, that should be a fortune."

Mal's mouth opened a hair, not sure if that was a comment at face value or a not-so-subtle insult, but was saved the embarrassment.

"The Lassiter's estimated black-market value is one point three million," River cut in, in her chillingly emotionless voice. "We will not go down to less than ten percent of its resale value."

"Hm," Dumont said. "Miss Doerner, I am surprised a woman of your standing is aware of such things as black market prices, especially considering they aren't so openly spoken of."

"Ms. Serra selected me for a very specific purpose," she replied. Mal thought the table would frost over at her words. "I keep abreast of prices."

Actually, it had been Kaylee and Wash who backtracked the value on the Lassiter, but everyone kept that fact quiet.

"I see," Dumont said. "Fifty thousand."

"Um," Mal cut in. "I don't know if you can tell, Mister Dumont, but I'm not laughing right now, so _perhaps _you need to stop making jokes and get down to business."

Dumont smiled at him, and Mal felt the chill of the Black coming off of that grin. The dark eyes bored into him, and he glared right back, putting all his memories of the war into his gaze.

To his side, not noticed by anyone present, River shrank back, lips pressing together for a moment, and behind her sunglasses, her eyes closed.

"I assure you, Captain," Dumont said, not breaking eye contact. "I don't jest." He leaned back, and a flare of warmth ran into his smile. "For one thing, I know the Lassiter was stolen six months ago from a certain individual, and has never so much as blinked on the radar scope, to use spacer terminology." He gestured to the pistol.

"Such an artifact attracts attention if it does. This leads me to conclude that you haven't been able to find any buyers, at least not without the lovely Miss Serra's assistance."

He leaned forward, and that chill came back, like he was flipping a switch.

"You don't have anyone else to sell to, so you've come to me." He glanced down to the pistol, and nodded. "I'll settle for seventy-five, no more."

"Eighty," Mal replied.

"Seventy-five," Dumont said, shaking his head. "No higher, Captain."

"You can afford eighty," Mal shot back, to which Dumont nodded.

"Which is why I'm only buying at seventy-five," he said. "Understand?"

Mal's mouth screwed up at that. He understood, and could read every snide piece of that insult clear as day.

"Seventy-five thousand, then," Mal said, making that enormously high sum sound like an insult right back. He still had his pride, even while getting paid ten times what he'd expect from the best of his jobs.

* * *

_**Two threads **_stretched from _the body_, held tight and strong by _**familiar presence**_. She _wound_ them around Inara and Mal to keep herself _anchored. _Inara held the string that Allison clung to, while Mal held the cord that was River.

Allison listened while River _plunged_ into the vault, and she _**saw**_.

_**Stillness. Presence. Cold movement**_.

**Metal**_**, **__edged_, **beeping**, _**machines**_.

_Better._ Everything was being made . . . _**better.**_

She hurled herself backwards before _**the better **_could sink its _**claws into her **_and _vibrate_ _up the line _into her body and _shake _everything to tiny pieces.

The _vibrations_ ran inside her and **shivered** into her core anyway, the reality _**twisting**_ and _tightening_ around her like iron, locking her _in the chair _and _to the rack _and he was _**smiling**_ and he had a _glass of Chianti _and talking about _**BUSINESS**_

"Seventy-five thousand then."

The role rose up again. _**The truth**_.

While River _shook_, Allison tightened around Inara.

* * *

"If that is the agreed amount?" River asked, voice still as cold as ever. Both men nodded, and she slid the datapad across. "Account information. Please transfer the funds."

Dumont tapped a few keys for a moment, and slid it back to the girl, who glanced over it. She handed it off to Inara, who nodded.

"And I suppose that concludes our business," Dumont said, all smiles again. They all stood, while River quietly packed up the briefcase and left the priceless laser pistol on the table.

"One last item of business," Inara said, smiling again now that the tension had begun to fade. "This party you spoke of . . . ."

"Oh, yes!" Dumont said, he chilly smile fading into a warm one. "I was hoping you would ask about that!" He reached down behind his desk - a movement that had Mal reflexively tightening his gun-hand's fingers - and the older man drew out a datapad.

"I was hoping we could possibly attend," Inara said, and Dumont nodded, still grinning.

"Of course, of course," he said and he held the datapad out. River slipped forward and took hold of it, glancing over the screen, before passing it to Inara.

"On that, you'll find all the information you need," he said, gesturing to the device. "Times, guest list, specific rules and places to land and meet, and so on."

"Thank you," Inara replied, taking the device and standing up. Mal did the same, and River drifted around to the side of the desk, waiting. The captain watched as Dumont circled around the desk, taking Inara's hand and kissing it again, saying a few quiet words to her, and he suppressed his jealousy.

As Dumont was stoking rage in the captain's head, Mal felt a hand grab his. He looked down to see River beside him, facing the opposite direction, head tilted downwards at the floor behind him.

"We need to be wind," she whispered, her words sharp and urgent, at odds with her cool, almost mechanical demeanor from before. Mal frowned, and then felt her fingers tightening around his arm, and understood.

"We're to be away in a 'beat," he replied, and her fingers relaxed. Mal tried to process what she'd meant by that.

River wanted to be _gone_. That meant either trouble, or something had spooked her. Either was bad.

"Inara," Mal said, stepping up beside her and plastering his biggest fake grin he could muster. "Just remembered, we've got that cargo needs hauling and the ship's waiting for us."

"I don't think-" Dumont was saying, and Inara frowned, confused. Mal plowed on through without pausing himself.

"And of course, time is wasting, and time is money, and Inara, you know how the ticket _reader_ gets a little _worried_ about _problems_." He paused for a single quick breath. "So, unfortunately, we've got to hurry along or there'll be fines and questions and angry guys in dock suits and _all manner _of trouble, so unfortunately we'll be heading out - and that is some _really_ nice carpet - so have a better one! Bye, now!"

Somewhere in that rambling, Mal had managed to take Inara's arm and gently shoo her toward the door and out the office. He waved jauntily toward Dumont as they moved outside, with River leading the way to the elevator.

Inara knew enough not to ask questions. She had already caught the words Mal had emphasized earlier, and now there was a sway in River's step that did not match the perfect poise she'd exhibited earlier. Mal himself was exhibiting all the signs of mild yet restrained anxiety. Something was wrong.

One of Dumont's house servants helped to escort them out, but Mal didn't miss a security guard trailing them at a distance the whole way through the house and out to the landing pad. They were smart enough to keep changing the guard, but Mal had spotted and slipped too many tails in the past to miss the fact that they were being shadowed.

As soon as they got back to the landing pad Mal hurried to the pilot's chair and got the vessel started.

"What happened?" Inara asked to which Mal held up his hand. He glanced to River, who frowned and started moving along the back of the shuttle. After a moment, she reached out and touched one of the velvet-lined walls, and shook her head.

"External," she said. "Vibration."

"We'll clean it off once we get back," Mal said, starting the shuttle's engines.

"What's going on?" Inara asked.

"They bugged the shuttle," Mal replied. "Sound detector on the outside. Pick up anything we say." He paused, and spoke the next words very loudly. "Which is awful _rude_, you know."

The transition back to _Serenity_ was done in a heavy silence, made all the worse by the fact that they all knew something was very wrong, yet River couldn't tell them what until they were safe. They didn't speak a word outside of what was necessary, with Mal being quick and terse in his contact with Wash on the way in.

For her part, Inara found herself trying to comfort River, who had curled up on the Companion's bed and was simply shaking.

The shuttle docked into place on the Firefly's flank, and the moment it did so Mal was stepping through the door.

"Kaylee!" he yelled, pulling off his frippy jacket the second he stormed through the door. The rest of the crew had gathered in the cargo bay as they'd been coming back, but they were surprised at the volume of his voice.

"Cap'n?" she asked, confused at his sudden change in voice.

"Kaylee," he repeated as he caught sight of her hurrying up the stairs. "You and Jayne get suited up. We've got a bug on the shuttle and I need ya'll to clear it off. Rest of ya'll stay a little quiet until we clear it, don't know its range or it can pick us up through the hull."

"River?" Simon asked as he clambered up the steps, even as Kaylee hurried back down, Jayne grabbing the two nearest pressure suits.

"With Inara," Mal said, as quietly as he could. "Had an episode while we were down there. See she's alright." He immediately hurried past Mal into the shuttle, the order unnecessary - partially because it wasn't an order, but more a request.

"What happened down there?" Book asked, and Mal shook his head.

"Let me get out of this foolery," he said, tugging off the tie he was wearing.

Another twenty minutes of quiet waiting in the cargo bay followed, and during that time Mal hit his bunk, getting rid of the formalwear and changing back into shirt and suspenders. He came back to find River had disappeared from Inara's shuttle.

"Simon's with her," Inara said. "He took her back to her room."

"Something down there spooked her good," Mal whispered, and his apprehension for this job went up a lot higher than it had already been.

"Think we oughta pull out?" Jayne asked as he pulled off his helmet. "We got a nice piece of cash and ain't no more risk." Mal frowned at the idea of Jayne turning down an opportunity to make a huge pile of money, but he had to agree with the mercenary's pragmatic reasoning.

"It would make sense," Book agreed, arms crossed. "If something is scaring River, we'd best take heed. Don't want to get involved over our heads." Mal nodded, and looked around at the rest of his crew. With the exception of Wash, who was flying, and the Tams, all were present. He didn't usually take consensus, but he wanted everyone's opinion. Zoë was the only other one offering hers up.

"We made seventy-five thousand on this one, sir," she said. "That's nearly twice the take we had on Ariel. We'll be set for a year, we keep our spending right. We don't need the risk."

"Well, I ain't decided on it yet," Mal replied. "We'll have to wait until Albatross is calmed down enough to tell us what she saw." He glanced to Inara, who nodded, and then turned to look at the rest of his crew.

"Let's get settled in. I figure we're still on for this job, so let's make preparations anyway. If it looks too dangerous, I'll pull out. Meantime, got work to be doing, so let's get to it."

The others nodded and began to reluctantly file out, save for Inara, who gave Mal a serious look. He nodded to her, understanding that she was also hesitant about this job.

"Gonna wait and see," he said. "If it was just River having a fit 'cause of a funny shape on one of those frilly paintings, or if it was something real bad we need to keep clear of." She nodded, agreeing with him, and he walked with her as she headed back up to her shuttle.

Mal hoped he was making the right call this time.

* * *

After the abrupt departure of his guests, Shin Yan Dumont listened to his security staff as they reported the exit of Miss Serra and her retinue. He watched with a fair piece of curiosity at the young girl named Doerner as she walked in the back of the group. While they hurried out of his mansion, he could see her solid, confident gait gradually breaking down.

Of course, she wasn't who she said she was. The strange incident with the elevator had warned him something was amiss, and he hadn't missed the brief moment between her and Captain Reynolds while he had been giving Inara her invitation.

_You are not who you say you are, little girl, _he thought, and that was followed by another: _what was Inara's real purpose for being here?_

He frowned, settling down behind the desk and picking up his priceless new artifact, which he had bought at the expense of pocket change and a few well-placed insults at Reynolds. The boxy form of the Lassiter sat easily in his hands for a while, and he stared at it as if it were going to give him his answers.

After a while, he set the priceless artifact aside, giving it no more thought, and pulled up the holo-computer built into his desk. he started running through the security recordings, and he quickly found video of himself leaning the little knot of people through the mansion. He zoomed in on Doerner's face, and then froze.

It was blurred, distorted by static.

Those sunglasses she had been wearing - they were scramblers. She wanted her identity hidden.

"Interesting," he whispered. Scramblers were nothing new - any rich person who wanted to keep from being spotted by paparazzi picture drones wore them, but so did a great many criminals.

Barely had he spoken that when the buzzer on his desk sounded.

"Yes?" he asked, annoyed at being interrupted in his contemplations.

"_Sir," _called one of the security guards. _"An agent from Allied Enforcement is holding at the perimeter. He wants to speak with you."_

"His name?"

"_He said his name is Womack, sir. Lieutenant Womack."_

Dumont smiled. Excellent. Right on time.

"Send him in."

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**Yikes, that was a long chapter. I was worried I might end up meandering a bit too much with this one.

For some odd reason, I got Timothy Dalton's role in Hot Fuzz stuck in my head while I was writing Dumont. There were also a few other references in this chapter, though I'm not going to give them away.

And thus, the plot thickens. I also wanted to throw in some more analysis of River, particularly with the whole issue of her growing up.

Until next chapter....


	42. Chapter Three: Insurance

_**Chapter Three: Insurance**_

_Fifteen was a surprise. The blade had sliced down, a quick diagonal chop aimed at his throat. He'd hopped back at the last second, barely avoiding the edge, and a quick backhand had been required to take him down before he got a shot off. The blade sliced up into his stomach, through his chest, out his throat, and nicked his jaw._

_Now, the figure was marked by blood splatter._

_Annoying._

_Sixteen was reloading his weapon. Most of them were doing that now, having frantically expended their magazines into the chaotic jumble of falling bodies and severed limbs. He managed to raise the rifle he was holding like a club to shield himself, but the blade snaked through the feeble defense and found his heart._

_Seventeen was finishing reloading his pistol, and raised it just in time to have a blade cleave his head in half._

_Eighteen had a shotgun, and was sliding a shell into it when seventeen's body slammed into him. He fell backward, retaining his footing, and raised his weapon with one had as the blade sank into his torso._

_The shotgun went off at point-blank in the figure's chest._

* * *

Blood pooled on the floor, and he gingerly stepped around it. He wasn't averse to doing dirty work – half of the time, it seemed, he was personally taking care of ugly business like this – but he still didn't want blood on his coat. His black gloves played across the keyboard the corpse was slumped next to, and a moment later, he heard two quick gunshots in the back of the building.

"And . . . wiped," Lieutenant Womack said, nodding. He picked up the laptop, gingerly closed it, and spun around to smash it against the wall. He took out his pistol and fired a couple of shots into it just to make sure it got the point, and stepped around the dead body.

Skunk loomed out of the rear doorway, pistol in hand.

"All dead?" Womack asked, and the big man nodded. A moment later, Milo walked in through the door across the room.

"Wired up," the skinny man called, and Womack nodded.

"Double-check and make sure," he ordered, and they started moving through the building – a little warehouse in a mid-sized city on a peak in Silverhold. They paused to prod each body, and Womack made sure to put a bullet into each intact head he saw. Twice, he caught a few twitches of movement, and that led to an extra bullet.

As he did his ugly work, he considered all the troubles that had brought him to this rather drastic act of violence. He wasn't averse to killing – illegal wetware dealing was a cutthroat business in the most literal sense – but the slaughter he'd been forced to go through over the last few hours was hitting wanton levels. He'd killed nearly sixty people, mostly men but also more than a few women, to cover up all his loose ends.

The fact was, business on Silverhold was too dangerous these days, and there were too many folks who knew about him to leave behind. However, Womack wasn't the type to tie up his loose ends.

"Milo, detonator," he ordered as they walked outside, and his subordinate handed him a radio detonator. He held in his hand for a moment, savoring he pause before the inevitable destruction, and pressed the thumb trigger.

Womack _burned_ loose ends.

And he had to admit, as much as this work was ugly and dirty and dangerous, it did come with a chunk of satisfaction.

Flames erupted from the building as he walked away, and the wind from the sudden shock of overheated air buffeted his coat as he strode away, pocketing the detonator. It would be a few minutes before anyone showed up to the blaze, and by that time, they would be long gone.

"That's the last one?" Skunk asked as they hurried toward their parked ship.

"Almost," Womack said. "Almost. Just got one more to burn."

* * *

"_Could you say that again?"_

"_Relocate, Mr. Dumont," Womack said, annoyed that he had to be this polite with anyone. Most of his associates' collective nutsacks were held so securely in his exceedingly tight grip that they were virtually fawning over him. Dumont . . . not so._

"_Allied Enforcement is closing in, and I can't guarantee protection for you for much longer," he warned, though he knew that last bit was a bit of an embellishment._

"_Protection?" Dumont scoffed, taking a sip from a decanter of some alcohol that likely cost as much as a starship. "Me?"_

_Of course, Dumont was Alliance. _Wealthy_ Alliance. In most respects, he was a lot like Womack, who used his position and the power it offered to leverage more power from the criminal underbelly. Unlike Womack, Dumont was Alliance military, not law enforcement, which meant he was virtually ironclad without doing something like shooting a man in broad daylight, on the steps of the Parliament building, while illegally downloading music files from the Cortex. Money, plus war heroism, meant Dumont was untouchable._

_And he had the evidence to casually implicate Womack if he felt the need to. Like, say, if the authorities were breathing down his neck and he decided to toss them a bone, and the authorities _loved _nothing more than bringing in corrupt cops._

"_Also, Mr. Dumont, there is another issue," the lieutenant said, trying a different tack. "Browncoats have been trying to get access to our-"_

"_Browncoats?" Dumont hissed, shaking his head and gesturing dismissively. "Thugs and pirates, and no bother for me. I would like to see them try to threaten the operation here!"_

_That led into a lengthy rant from Dumont against his old enemies. Womack tuned it out and simply sat there, trying to keep from panicking, or simply jumping up and smashing Dumont's face into his finely crafted and obscenely expensive desk. And as Dumont continued to casually explain why he didn't fear the Alliance or the Browncoats or the Allied Enforcement agency Womack represented, the smuggler realized he was going to have to do more to deal with this loose end than just shoot him repeatedly in the face._

_No matter how much he _wanted _to._

* * *

That was the last one, save for the biggest threat to his operations, which had rapidly shrunk to just Womack, Skunk, Milo, and the very well-armed, heavily-modified, and expensive Alliance gunship he captained.

Womack considered his options. Dumont was too well-protected. He couldn't just go in, guns blazing, at least not without someone to serve as a distraction, or maybe to catch the blame. Someone he could pin the crime on, someone like . . . .

The officer blinked, and then a wicked grin hit him. As his ship rose into the skies over Silverhold, he accessed the local police data network, and started looking for a certain subset of people in the region that he knew he could use without casting a bit of suspicion his way.

"Browncoats," he whispered, and as the list of known Browncoats in-system appeared on his monitor, Womack found himself pausing at one particular and very familiar name.

Oh. Oh yes. That was_ perfect._

* * *

The morning cycle for the day after came and went, and it quickly became apparent to Wash that not everyone had enjoyed a good night's sleep. Mal was unusually bleary and crotchety in particular; the previous night, the pilot had found Mal getting up and wandering about the ship more often than was usual. Something was really bothering him.

It also didn't pass unnoticed that River was keeping to herself, having not even emerged from her bunk to get breakfast. Simon had expressed his worry, as she hadn't answered when he'd knocked on her door earlier, but he seemed oddly hesitant to check on her. As they cleaned up the morning meal, Wash picked up on that and offered to go check on her, assuring Simon that she'd probably just been tired and overslept.

He paused outside her door, listening for a few seconds to see if she was awake, but heard nothing, so he quietly knocked.

"River?" he asked. No answer came back, so he knocked again. Finally, he edged the door open, if only to check and make sure she was simply asleep.

He glanced inside and saw the pillows and bedsheets had been hurled around the room, and River was balled up in the corner of her bed, a blanket tight around her.

"River?" Wash asked, now concerned, and moved into the room, hoping she hadn't hurt herself in whatever rage had made her wreck her room like this. "Hey, Albatross, are you okay?"

Her head rose at the nickname Wash had adopted from Mal. It was a good nickname, better than what Jayne called her, and he was too old to call her a _mei-mei_. He'd considered giving her a funny name of his own, and was batting around something to do with that joke he'd made way back about her being a machine from the future, but nothing came of it.

River rose slightly, her once-combed hair now an unkempt mass that fell across her face, and that made Wash halt in place and close his eyes quickly, whispering a curse under his breath and spinning away just as fast.

Underneath the blanket, River was naked.

"No," she said, and he heard her shift again. "It's okay now."

He cautiously opened his eyes and saw she had wrapped herself back up again, her cheeks flushed a bit with embarrassment, even though Wash hadn't seen anything compromising. Not that that would change anything, as he'd already seen her naked before when she'd climbed out of the cryo box more than a year ago, but . . . .

Wash shook himself out of his mental ramblings. The only part of her he could see now was her hair and her eyes, peeking out at him from beneath the blanket. Her eyes were red from crying, as they usually were after she'd had an episode.

"I, ah, brought you some breakfast," Wash offered, and the top of the blanket shifted, as if she was nodding. He set the plate down on the nightstand beside her, and as he did so, he saw the case with her art supplies had been thrown open and everything within was scattered under her bed.

"River," he asked. "You gonna be all right?"

She nodded again.

"I am confident it hasn't left me incapacitated for a prolonged period," she answered. He thought on that for a moment, and guessed she meant that she would recover soon enough.

"You think you can tell us what you saw down there?" he asked, to which the blanket shook, her eyes closing.

"Not yet," she whispered. "The intelligence gathered must be processed before it can be allocated." She looked down inside the blanket for a moment, and then backup at him. "And I think I broke my pens."

"Well, hey, we can afford to get you some new ones," Wash offered, giving her a smile, and she nodded again. At least she was talking in complicated words, instead of nonsensical ones. That meant she had to be feeling better, and from his observation, it meant she was simply thinking a lot as opposed to being stuck in another spat of mental chaos.

"The interpretation is apt," she said, and he understood that she had involuntarily read his thoughts. They'd worked enough on the bridge that he knew she could – and did - waltz in and out of his head without thinking as a matter of course. Most people might find that worrying, but it didn't bother Wash.

"I need time to order extraneous data," River continued. "It doesn't make sense yet. Then I'll have to . . . ." she trailed off. Wash frowned, and then she closed her eyes before finishing.

"I'll have to write it down," she said, and then seemed to retract into the blanket. The pilot watched for a moment, and then carefully reached across to her shoulder and gave her a reassuring squeeze. Something about the way she had said that told him the phrase had a much deeper and darker meaning for her. She tensed up at his touch, but then relaxed.

"Come out when you're ready, River," he said, and the blanket moved, as if she were nodding. He stood up and stepped out of the room, gently shutting the door behind him, and silently hoped that she would be quick in recovering.

Alone in her bunk, she heard Wash's unspoken thoughts clearly, and that made her retreat even further into herself. For a few brief minutes, she went back to the same sobbing she'd hidden before he'd arrived.

Only for a few minutes, though, for she knew she had a job to do.

"I am functional," she whispered, shivering one last time as she fought back to normality, and then crawled out of her blanket, scrabbling around for her clothes.

* * *

_"-octors Mathias and Kondraki presiding, with Colonel Dannett overseeing operations. Test subjects used for the exercise consisted of the following: Empath One-Three-Seven (Tam), callsign Alpha. Empath One-Four-Two (Kim), callsign Juliet. Inducer One-One-Nine (Wade), callsign Sierra. Kinetic One-One-Three (Priad), callsign Golf. Security element consisted of Blank One-One-Seven (Garis), callsign Echo. The four test subjects and the security element were to engage and neutralize a combat force consisting of thirty military-trained security personnel armed with non-lethal weaponry. Video attached."_

Another morning, another recording he'd found, only partially corrupted. The attached video was part of that corrupted file, and he found the transcript also lost. Sighing, the Shepherd paged further down, finding an audio commentary, and quietly wished he never had to do this.

The children, however, needed to be heard.

The commentary this time was female, which made things a bit worse. The woman sounded like she should have been old enough to have children of her own, but the cold tone she spoke in belied that. He knew of the kind of on-off switch people employed by these types of organizations tended to have, but it was still jarring.

_"Golf noted to have unusually high degree of aggression during exercise. Subject used kinetic force well in excess of non-lethal mission parameters, resulting in four fatalities before memetic deactivation phrase was utilized. Sierra suffered emotional collapse midway through combat and was rendered catatonic. Age may have been part of the cause, as well as continued mental instability due to programming and telesthetic attunement. Advising waiting until subject reaches teens before next treatment."_

He paused the recording, and sat there for a moment.

Waiting until subject reaches _teens_.

He knew they were using young people for this, but a child who wasn't even past their tenth birthday . . . .

Book glanced down to his journal, and saw his hands were trembling, but whether it was from shock, horror, or simple rage, he couldn't tell. All three emotions were fighting for control.

He turned off the datapad and put it away, calming himself. Going through information like this was bringing back too many dark memories, and reminding him of why he'd sought solace in the Word of the Lord so many years ago.

That solace returned a few minutes later as he paged through his Bible, slowly taking the words in and letting the verses and their meanings drift through him and bring serenity back. Once that calm had returned, he slipped into silent, meditative prayer, asking for guidance on how he should act on the knowledge he had gained.

The answers eluded him, but he knew that was not the point of the act. The answer, as always, came in time, and after finishing his meditation, the Shepherd dressed himself. As he did so, he paused to look upon the many scars he bore on his bare chest, including the most recent ones. They intermixed with older markings, a myriad of wounds that told countless tales of nearly eighty years of conflict and violence. He was in good shape for a man of his age, but how much longer that would last out here, away from the Core and the gentle, healthy living of an abbey on a central planet, was up for debate.

The door to his bunk opened a short while later, and he stepped outside. He turned toward the stairs and nearly tripped over a bundle of legs, arms, and hair that was curled up by his door.

"River?" he asked, catching himself before he could fall over her. The girl looked up, eyes blank for a moment, before focusing on him. He immediately saw redness in her gaze, as if she had been recently crying, and he crouched down beside her. "Are you okay?"

"The creek brushed against my ankles as I crossed," she said, blinking. "I stopped to feel the water, but then the flow became too strong and noisy. My knees gave out, and . . . ." she paused, closed her eyes, and shook her head. "I am speaking in metaphors again."

Book considered her meaning, and then extended a hand toward her, which she gently took, and he helped her to her feet. As she rose, he tried to decipher her words, and then understanding hit him like an angry Jayne's forehead.

"You heard," he said, and she nodded. Of course. Her bunk was at the back of the passenger section, just beneath the engine, where she liked to sleep. In order to get out, she'd have to pass by his room, where he had been listening to the recordings from the data needle.

"I apologize, River," he offered, realizing how he'd inadvertently affected her, but she shook her head.

"The memory is unclear," she said, and started walking toward the stairs. He walked with her. "Thirty-four months of jumble and muddy waters and cold. I still have trouble sorting it out. Association may breed understanding and thus breed clarity."

"Do you want to talk about what I've learned?" he asked. There was a great deal of unclear information he'd obtained, and he was still trying to sort it out. There were thousands of files still encrypted, and hundreds of decrypted ones he'd had yet to examine. Maybe if he could compare what he knew with what she'd experienced . . . .

"The foundations are still mired in sand and mud," she replied, shaking her head. "It is still shaky, and the product won't-" She cut herself off again.

"More word confusion," she muttered, her tone sounding annoyed and tired. "My dreams were bad, and I'm still sorting yesterday's incursion. We should talk later when I'm less twisty."

"We can, if you're up to it," he agreed, and they moved up the stairs.

"Unnecessary cloth is being woven," she mumbled absently as they got to the top of the stairs. He tried to decipher her meaning, but that became unnecessary when he heard voices coming from the mess.

"We'll need three teams," Simon was saying. "One to perform the actual break-in, one needed to do observation at the party, and the last needed as backup in case something goes wrong."

"Since the invitation was extended to me, I'll have to be part of the observation team," Inara was saying, hovering behind the counter and pouring some tea. Simon and Kaylee were seated at the table, going over a couple of data pads and some schematics.

"The observation will work best-" Simon was saying, but then stopped as the Shepherd and River entered the room, and the doctor smiled. "_Mei-mei_, you're awake!"

"You didn't annoy me into waking," River said, and that made Simon's smile waver, but only a bit. That made Book curious, and he stepped aside toward the kitchen, watching the pair. Simon moved up beside his sister, taking her arm, but he noticed a hesitation and uncertainty there that hadn't been present yesterday. He knew River had been acting differently since her eighteenth birthday, with a degree of confidence and certainty that hadn't been as apparent before, but the way her brother was acting around her showed the exact opposite.

Then he glanced to Kaylee, and saw she was smiling at the pair.

"I'm sorry, I . . . Wash wanted to look in on you, and I didn't want to rush you for breakfast or anything so-"

"Its okay," she said, shaking her head. "Time is required to align memories. I am feeling twisty this morning."

"Is your stomach bothering you?" he asked, but she shook her head.

"Perceptions," she said. "It'll pass." She paused next to the table, and picked up one of the datapads. "Crime is afoot."

"Yeah, we're startin' things now," Kaylee agreed. "Simon's got a good idea, and Wash pulled up the schematics on the Cortex, but they ain't sayin' much."

River nodded along, but kept her eyes fixed on the datapad, paging through the information contained on it.

"We missed you at breakfast," Inara said to Book, and he smiled.

"I was up last night reading," he admitted, though he didn't tell her about what he'd been looking at exactly.

"How goes the plotting?" Book asked Inara as River and Simon settled down around the table.

"As one would expect," Inara replied, with a shrug. "I'm still amazed at seeing Simon's aptitude for crime."

"Considering what else he's done," Book replied, frowning, "this comes as no surprise to me. He's adept at breaking things down into individual problems, but without losing sight of the whole picture. Both he and River are very skilled at analysis." He paused, and then started rummaging through the cabinet for some food.

"Speaking of which, have you noticed how odd he's been acting?" That question was spoken quietly enough that only Inara could hear it, and she nodded.

"Kaylee had a talk with me about it," the Companion said. "River is growing up, and Simon is having a hard time adjusting."

"Understandable," Book said, nodding. He now placed Simon's movements – as well as his lack of them, he noted now – as nervous uncertainty. He didn't know how to act with River, and the girl's gradual but growing self-assertiveness was leaving him out of sorts after having settled into his protective, parent-like role.

"Has the captain made a decision yet on the job?" Book asked as he took out a packet of protein, and he nodded toward the knot of planners. Kaylee was going over the schematic, while River seemed to be barely paying her any mind, instead staring at the datapad. Simon hovered nearby, not quite jumping in and instead simply watching his sister and Kaylee.

"No," Inara admitted. "And knowing Mal, I can't say whether he'll reject the job for being too risky or take the job because it's dangerous enough to be fun."

* * *

Jayne Cobb found himself facing a rarity that morning as he stood behind the weight bench in the hold. It wasn't particularly unusual for him to spot for someone wanting exercise, but it was usually the Shepherd who was working out, and sometimes Zoë, and even Wash when he was feeling the need to enhance his lacking manliness. However, it was odd to spot Mal, of all people.

Jayne respected the Cap'n's strength, but Mal mostly kept fit with body-weight exercise, not weight training, but today he was benching some hefty weights, grunting under the strain as he worked. That got Jayne thinking as he watched Mal, offering a hand after each set. Mal wasn't talking much, which meant he was thinking, but he was exercising, which meant he was anxious, as he always liked to move around and do things when anxious.

"Job botherin' you?" Jayne asked as Mal finished his seventh set, and he eased the bar back onto the rack. Mal exhaled, wiping the sweat off his face, and looked up at his mercenary.

"Unknowns," he answered after a moment. "Albatross is spooked, but I ain't got an inklin' what."

"I ain't one to turn down coin, but _xiao gui's_ got her head on enough that when she starts flipping, we need to pay attention," Jayne said. "Ain't turned us wrong yet."

"That's what's got me spooked too," Mal said, sitting up, and Jayne handed him a towel. "And somethin' about Dumont didn't edge me right anyhow. I'm gettin' the same notion about him I got toward Niska near a year back." He frowned and rose, stretching his tired arms.

"I don't like it," Mal said, finally. "Considering just ordering Wash to hit us a fueling station and then burn as fast as I can. Sure as the turnin' of worlds that Dumont noticed River was off a bit."

"We got good coin, and I ain't gonna argue if we move on," Jayne added. Mal nodded, not terribly surprised by Jayne's admission that he wasn't eager to go on a job that would leave them swimming in cash. He knew Jayne had developed a trusting of River's powers, the same as Mal, and the two men had the same thoughts.

"As dreadful as the thought is, I agree with Jayne," came Zoe's voice. They heard footsteps coming down from the catwalk, and looked up to see Zoë and Wash walking into the bay.

"We made off well, and I don't see a reason to stay, especially if River's not liking it," she continued.

"How is she?" Mal asked, glancing to Wash, who shrugged.

"Bad night," he replied, and Mal could see the pilot was a little worried. "Wouldn't tell me anything, but she definitely didn't sleep well. She was trying to hide it, but whatever it was, I don't think it was a little temporary thing."

"From what Wash was describing," Zoë added, "it sounds like a post-traumatic flash to me."

That made the bay deathly silent. There were a whole lot of things that could trigger post-traumatic stress, but in a person like River, most of those things were very, very _bad_. If she'd had a brush with something that brought back memories like that . . . .

"I don't like this," Mal said, looking to his crew. "This smells of something I don't want to get hip-deep in." Mal turned to his pilot. "Wash, find us a fueling station, load us up. Then set a course takes us out of this system. We've got plenty of coin, we'll last a while until other prospects come up."

"On it," he said, nodding, and started toward the stairs. Mal glanced between Jayne and Zoë, and only got agreeing nods from them. They'd been playing things risky enough. No need to invite more trouble.

He clattered up the steps toward the mess to give the others the news.

* * *

"If I'm readin' this right, there'll be a good spot right here where we can sneak 'em inside the understructure of the island," Kaylee said, gesturing to a spot on the schematics.

"They'll need to override the locks," Simon replied, gesturing to the door she'd indicated.

"Not they. Me." Kaylee said. "I gotta go with the break-in team."

"I don't think-" Simon started to protest, but she cut him off.

"Ain't no one's got enough know-how to make the locks and security behave but me," she insisted. "I'll have Jayne and Mal lookin' over me, an' Zoë and Wash watching out for us if things get bad. It's you I'm worried about."

Book watched the pair talk with interest as he ate, sitting at the opposite end of the table. River had stayed out of the conversation, looking over the schematics, but spending a lot more time peeking at the datapad. Now that Kaylee and Simon were engrossed in the details of the job, the girl seemed to have retreated, eyes becoming distant.

"River?" he asked, worried she might be having another spell, but her eyes focused on him immediately.

"It's not relevant," she said, almost apologetically. "Other realities are intruding. Too present for me. Eyes and pings, deflecting off _Serenity_, and . . . ."

She trailed off as the ship shuddered slightly, and that drew Simon and Kaylee out of their argument.

"Wash changing course?" the mechanic asked, right before they heard footsteps clattering up the rear stairwell. Mal and Zoë emerged, trailed by Jayne, and they moved into the dining room with an array of serious expressions.

"Mal, is something wrong?" Inara asked, and the captain paused, before nodding.

"Doc, li'l Kaylee, how are you on the plan?"

"Yes, we're still working on the initial details. Why?" Simon asked.

"Well, ya'll can stop," he said. "Thought on the issue a bit, and considered what we know." He glanced toward River, who nodded silently. "We're dumping this job and making way somewhere else."

If he'd been expecting protests, Mal was disappointed. The others only nodded, excepting Kaylee, whose smile grew.

"Does this mean we get to spend the pretty?" she asked, enthusiasm barely masked, and Mal nodded.

"Soon as we're well away from this planet, and probably this quadrant. I've had enough pretty poison clouds for my living, and-"

Mal was silenced by the sudden roar of the ship's proximity alarm, which was quickly squelched, but then chased by an equally ominous sound.

_"Mal!"_

That was Wash, and he was yelling in his "please get up here, sir, to see the bad news with your own eyes" voice. The captain gave Zoë and Jayne a quick glance, and then everyone was standing and hurrying toward the crew corridor.

Everyone, Book realized, except River. He glanced back toward her, to see the girl had indeed risen, but instead of following the others, she bolted across the room.

"River, where are you-" Simon called, but stopped in mid-sentence as River reached the wall by the kitchen and then went _up_. Her arms and legs flowed and she simply clambered up the wall like a human spider. She crawled into one of the vents overlooking the dining room, legs and hair and fabric swallowed up by the darkness in a heartbeat.

"Doc, see to her," Mal ordered, pausing just long enough to note River's oddness, and then continuing toward the bridge. Book paused while Simon looked up at the vent where his sister had disappeared.

"Do you need any help?" the Shepherd asked, and Simon shook his head.

"I'll take care of it," he offered, and Book nodded, letting him take care of his sister while the preacher followed the rest of the crew toward the bridge.

"Wash, the hell's going on?" Mal was calling.

"Got an Alliance gunship closing fast," Wash replied. "They're right up on us. Snuck in through the regular traffic and burned straight onto our tails."

"Can you shake 'em?" Mal asked, leaning over his pilot while the rest of Serenity's crew filled up the room behind them. Wash shook his head.

'That's a neg," he replied. "That proximity alert was them. They are on our butts like a bad rash." There came a sudden beeping from the console, followed by a slightly less insistent tone. "And that's the radar telling us we're being pinged by targeting." The pilot's hands flew over the console. "And we're . . . _amaze_ment. We're getting a wave."

"Put 'em on," Mal said, leaning past his pilot toward the camera, and a second later the screen popped and fizzled and finally showed a familiar face that made Malcolm Reynolds curse under his breath the moment he saw it.

"Captain Reynolds," said the sinister, balding face of Lieutenant Womack. Behind Mal, Book tensed up, realizing the trouble they were in.

"Ah, Lieutenant," Mal said, giving Womack his best "twat off" smile. "What do we owe the pleasure?"

"Pleasure is mine," Womack replied, and the smile faded, replaced by deadly seriousness. "Ya'll are going to slow down and let my ship dock with your belly hold, or I'm going to report piracy and blow you to scrap. _Dong ma_?"

The way he spoke those words sent a stillness through the bridge. Everyone on Serenity knew the difference between an honest but harsh police officer, and a corrupt cop who was perfectly willing to use violence for his own ends.

"I'm not sure what the issue is here, officer," Mal started to say, but then serenity shuddered. It wasn't much, but it was enough, and the message was clear.

"No time for games," Womack hissed. "Slow. Dock. Or your boat burns."

The feed cut out, and Mal leaned back, exhaling.

"Captain?" Wash asked. Mal didn't immediately reply, shaking his head and turning toward the others.

"Ideas?" he asked.

"Womack has muscle he's willing to throw around," Book said, considering the conversation and the difference between how he'd acted at Aberdeen and how he was acting now. "His stripes give him jurisdiction here at Silverhold. He could very well blow us out of space and no one would bat an eye if he claims sufficient reason."

"That's the notion I've got too," Mal replied. He looked to the rest of his crew. "But he ain't shot us down yet, which means he needs us for something."

"We ain't just lettin' 'em board," Jayne growled, to which Mal nodded.

"No, we ain't," he said, and looked to Zoë. "We ain't got much time, so we need to cook something up fast. Wash, take your time letting 'em dock. Zoë, I need you and a suit, and Shepherd, I need you and Kaylee to whip something special up right quick."

* * *

Ten minutes had passed between then and now, and he was angry, though he did his best to hide it. No doubt Reynolds was hiding any evidence of his crimes, not that it mattered.

The airlock door slid open, and despite every instinct that told him to go in with a weapon leading, Womack kept his hands away from the array of lethality he kept hidden inside his coat. Instead, he strode forward, adopting the confident swagger of an Allied Enforcement agent who knew he had a wall of authority behind him. Skunk and Milo walked behind him, weapons in their holsters, and he took the lead, casually rubbing his gloved hands together as he stepped inside _Serenity_.

This wasn't the first time he'd been inside this ship, though he noted a few subtle changes since the last time he'd been aboard. It was a bit cleaner, and they had a big cargo mule lashed up on the catwalk overhead.

Of course, some things didn't change, like the array of weapons leveled at him as he stepped inside.

"Well," he said, with a wide smile. "Fancy meeting you folks again." He turned, peering around the room, and noticed the familiar big man with an enormous machinegun in hand looming on the catwalk, in a perfect spot to spray Womack and his associates. On the other side of the room, he saw Captain Reynolds, holding another assault rifle. It was a classic interlocking crossfire, and Womack knew if they wanted him dead, he'd be down before he could get a hand anywhere near his weapons.

If he was scared at all, no one on _Serenity_ could tell.

"You're short one from my memory," the officer said, continuing to stride forward, to which Reynolds didn't even blink. Womack instead kept talking.

"Well, now, I'm in a bit of a situation here," he commented casually. He stopped next a crate, and casually wiped it off, before sitting down, and pointedly ignored the big man with the equally huge weapon at his back

"It turns out," he said, leaning back a bit to meet Reynolds' gaze. "I may have caught one of the links in the big wetware smuggling ring I've been after for years now."

There was a flicker in Reynolds' eyes at that.

"You folks have no idea the kind of trouble you're in," Womack continued. "They just upped the sentencing on wetware smuggling, and _whoo_." He laughed a bit. "We just hauled in three crates fill of gene-enhanced guts off _this_ decrepit pile of junk."

"That so?" Reynolds asked, and Womack grinned back at him, pausing to run his tongue over his teeth before replying. He noted that the gun in Reynolds' hands hadn't even twitched. Had to respect a man that stone cold.

"Of course, I'm a reasonable man," Womack said, knowing intimidation wouldn't work on this group. He'd learned that the expensive way some months back. It was then that he realized how cavernously empty the bay was, as if the rest of the crew was all hiding. Or maybe waiting in ambush. Certainly they were missing the Shepherd, and the dangerous woman with the long rifle.

"Reasonable enough to invade my ship with false evidence," Reynolds shot back, and Womack chuckled.

"Slandering an officer of the law is a criminal offense on Silverhold," Womack replied. "Skunk, write that down, too." Skunk didn't move, but that wasn't the point. "But anyway, I am a reasonable man, and I'd be willing to overlook your . . . offenses, if you'd do some charity work." His smile widened. "Help the side of justice and such."

There came a click behind Womack, from the mercenary, and that was the only response.

"Now, you kill me," Womack said, letting his smile fade down to properly sinister levels, "And there's going to be a whole fleet of Alliance ships gunning for your boat. You'd never make it out of orbit, let alone out of the system. Especially after murdering an officer of the law."

"Won't be the first time," Reynolds replied. Damn, this guy was _cold_. That made him perfect.

"I'm sure it ain't," Womack replied. "Now, you see, I have a problem. A mutual acquaintance." He slowly rose, dusting off his coat as he did so, and fixed Reynolds with a sharp, solid glare.

"His name is Dumont."

"Never heard of him," Reynolds replied, all steel and stone. The barrel of his rifle hadn't wavered a millimeter.

"Seventy-five thousand credits in your piddly bank accounts says otherwise," Womack countered. "Not to mention some priceless artifacts that a man on Bellerophon will be very interested to hear about."

There was just the tiniest flicker of emotion there. Bull's-eye.

"Let's find a place more comfortable to talk," Womack said.

"Right 'tween these sights is just as comfortable as I like," Reynolds responded. "Speak your piece."

It was a subtle thing, but it was there. Even though Reynolds could have killed him with a flick of his finger, Womack had the edge in this conversation.

"Dumont isn't what he seems," Womack explained, grinning and moving his tongue around inside his mouth again. He began to pace back and forth, if only to force Reynolds to keep moving his weapon. "He's not a guy who makes his money off buying and reselling bits of stupid some folk chose to spend millions of creds on."

A heartbeat's pause, before Womack continued.

"He's actually-"

"A wetware smuggler," Reynolds said, as if it was obvious. In retrospect, it was, but Womack hid his pout at the casual obliteration of his dramatic reveal.

"Close," Womack said, pointing an affirmative finger up at Reynolds as he paced. "Pretty close. He's not a smuggler, but he_ is _a supplier."

"Supplies you," Reynolds said, and Womack nodded.

"A bit," he admitted. "But-"

"Lately he ain't supplying you none, so you want him dealt with," Reynolds finished, and there was a slight flicker of satisfaction on his face. Womack let an annoyed frown show.

No, that wasn't it at all. He wanted Dumont dealt with because he represented a serious threat to Womack's business and – more importantly – Womack's freedom. But hey, if Reynolds wanted to think he was a clever bastard, he was free to do so.

"I ain't an assassin," Reynolds spoke up before Womack could continue. The way he spoke it meant it was more than literal – Reynolds wasn't an assassin because he didn't _consider_ himself one.

"No, but you're very good at making a mess," Womack replied, grinning again.

"I'm thinking you'll want to turn right 'round and get off this boat," Reynolds said. "And find someone else less likely to riddle you with holes to do your dirty work."

"Captain," Womack said, injecting just enough condescension into his voice to irritate Reynolds, "You and I both know an empty threat when we hear one. Now, you and I can stand here all day long looking at each other through the sights of a gun, or we can talk business. We both know you're guilty of very bad things. Murder, smuggling, harboring fugitives . . . ."

Womack trailed off, for at that moment, he saw a sudden flash of emotion on Reynolds' face. Just a flicker, there and gone faster than one could see usually, but it was there.

"Interesting," Womack said, his smile growing, and at that moment the tension in the bay became as thick as concrete. There was a slight shift in Reynolds' posture, and Womack glanced over his shoulder at the hired muscle, whose body language had gone from readily violent to dangerously close to laying on the trigger. Womack looked back to Reynolds just in time to catch him give the mercenary a tiny shake of the head.

Reynolds was harboring fugitives. Very interesting. And very dangerous, for suddenly Womack felt the air had become distinctly lethal, and he suspected that if he kept pushing this point, they'd shoot him anyway, Alliance insurance be damned.

Not that he was going to let them see his apprehension.

"Captain, let's stop playing games here and set things bare and clear. You do this job for me, and I'll forget all about your ship, and let you run along doing whatever it is you do, with your nice little pile of cash." He shrugged. "You don't do the job, you're humped. Your call."

Reynolds stared back. For a long while, Womack watched him, seeing emotions playing behind his eyes, mixed with racing thoughts. Those eyes became unfocused for a heartbeat, and he glanced up toward his mercenary, before looking back down toward the officer standing below him.

A couple of seconds later, the rifle rose up to point at the ceiling, and the finger eased off the trigger.

"Speak on the job, then I'll decide whether I should kill you or send you running," Reynolds said, and that made Womack grin again. For all the quiet bluster, he was beaten.

"Its simple enough," Womack explained. "And by the by, no assassination. Just wrecking. I give you the layout, codes, and such for Dumont's estate, and you go inside. You get into his lab, and you wreck everything. Burn it all. Scientists, samples, specimens, product. Destroy it all."

"You're askin' me to murder folk, and then say there's no assassination," Reynolds muttered, and Womack grinned.

"You ain't too squeaky clean, Captain," he said, pacing around to stand by the airlock, next to his subordinates. "I've heard of your rep. You've walked over just as many bodies as I have."

"And what guarantee do you have me and mine aren't going to get sold out to the Alliance anyhow once the job's done?"

"Oh, you're just gonna have to take that one on faith, Captain," Womack said, shrugging. "I'm a reasonable man."

Reynolds was silent for a moment, and then looked up past Womack. There was a tiny nod, and then a sharp click of a readied weapon at his back.

Womack turned, as casually as he could, to see the missing member of Reynolds' crew, the dark-skinned woman with the long curly hair. She was standing in the airlock and clad in an environment suit, helmet in one hand and a short lever-action shotgun pointed at his chest.

"Little girl," Womack said, nodding to the weapon off-handedly. "You're gonna want to put that thing away, 'less you want the Alliance all over you."

"The gun cock was just for dramatic effect," Reynolds said, and there was a sudden injection of levity in his voice. "Zoë, you get it done?"

"Our insurance policy is in place," the woman said, weapon dropping, and she walked past Womack.

"Hid it well?" the captain asked.

"Like always," she replied.

"Insurance policy?" Womack said, doing his best to keep his cool, even as he suddenly realized he'd been humped.

While he'd been in here, taking his time with threatening the captain, she'd slipped out an airlock and planted something on his ship. His very well-armed, heavily modified, and above all, _expensive _ship.

"Clever, Captain Reynolds," he said, and forced a smile. "What kind of insurance policy?"

"One you're not likely to find," the captain replied, and managed a smile. "So don't bother lookin', as it won't do you a lick of good. Just know that if you decide to be tickled with the notion of justice and try to hand us over to the Alliance, your 'bitty little boat is gonna be in 'bitty little pieces."

"Right," Womack conceded. So there they were, with metaphorical guns pointed at each others' heads. Still, he knew he had Reynolds by the balls just as much as Reynolds had him, so the captain was likely to do as he wanted.

"Milo, disc," Womack ordered, and his skinny associate handed the disc in question over. "On here is all you'll need. Layout, blueprints, info on security systems, codes. And a wave freq for me. We'll be watching. Don't leave the system."

The woman slid up toward him and plucked the disc from Womack's fingers, and he gave Reynolds another grin.

"Get it done, captain, and you'll never see me again. Hopefully." He paused to spit on the floor, making sure to put the wad of phlegm as close to the middle of the bay as he could, and then turned to walk out.

A moment later, the airlock slid shut behind him, and he turned to Skunk.

"Search the boat, top to bottom," he ordered. "Find whatever that sack of crap stuck on my ship and get rid of it."

"Syaoran would be able to find it," Milo commented, but Womack shook his head.

"He's on Paquin, and there's no way in hell I'm pulling out of Silverhold until Reynolds has done the job. Just get a hand scanner and go over every inch of my ship until you find that _gorram_ bomb and get rid of it."

He stalked down the passage toward the bridge, cursing under his breath.

But Reynolds was going to do the job. He could see it in the Captain's eyes, and that gave Womack cause to relax.

Either they'd do the job, which would ruin Dumont's stock and clean everything up for Womack, or they'd fail the job and set Dumont off, giving Womack's warnings credit, which would help convince Dumont to relocate or at least shut down. Either way, Womack won.

Soon, he assured himself, all the loose ends would be cleaned up.

* * *

The doors hissed closed, and the tension in the room slowly faded. A few moments later, the rest of the crew began to filter in, save for River, who was apparently still hiding, and Simon, who was still trying to convince her to come back out. Jayne had a vicious scowl on his face, while Zoe's was still and unreadable. The others had various looks of trepidation and worry on theirs. Mal said nothing, instead simply removing the magazine from his rifle.

"So, we got the _gorram_ job whether we like it or not," Jayne growled.

"Womack's letting us do the dying," Zoë added, nodding. "Doesn't want to risk himself, so we-"

A sudden clang echoed throughout the bay, and everyone looked up in surprise to see the magazine from Mal's rifle bounce off the wall and into a corner. They looked up to him, to see that look of vicious, helpless rage he sported when backed into a corner. After his brief spat of impulsive, violent action, he gripped the top railing of the catwalk and looked down at his crew. All trace of the ease he'd been sporting at the end of the conversation with Womack was gone.

"We got ourselves a job," he hissed. "Let's get to making it profitable."

* * *

"River?" Simon's voice echoed, bouncing of the tight walls, and she opened her eyes. "River, they're gone now."

"I know."

"Are you going to come out?"

In the vent overlooking the mess, a tightly clenched bundle of girl slowly unwound herself. She listened, steadying her breathing, and as the intruders left the ship's belly and moved on, her fingers slowly unwound themselves from the datapad. She relaxed, exhaling, and then looked down at the piece of metal and plastic she'd been hugging to her chest.

The invitations Inara had received glittered back at her in the darkness. Her fingers played over the keys, and eyes that had been marked with wetness dried, and the soft features of her face gradually hardened as she read the names.

She found the one she was looking for.

All motion - he gestures of fingers, the flicking of her eyes, the working of her lips, and the breathing of her lungs - came to a dead halt. The only movement of her body was the steady rhythm of her heartbeat and the cascade of electrical impulses firing off in her brain.

"River, please come out," Simon pleaded.

Not yet. She couldn't come out yet. River turned the datapad off, curled herself back up in the dark warmth of the vent, and waited.

* * *

-

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_ That is the sound of foreshadowing.

Until next chapter . . . .


	43. Chapter Four: Anxiety

_**Chapter Four: Anxiety**_

_The blast was murderously powerful, shoving the figure backward and to the dirt. A hand snapped out, catching the dirt and pushing off, and the blade-wielder was back on two feet with a light flip._

_Through the torn clothes, the body armor caught a flicker of the rising sunlight._

_Then number nineteen died, the blade stabbing up through his gut and out his back._

_

* * *

_

"We're gonna need three teams," Kaylee said. She gestured to the map of the estate that she'd printed out, now a lot more detailed than the one they'd had before. Around her, the rest of the crew gathered. Mal was peering over the document something fierce, and Jayne loomed behind Kaylee, arms crossed and scowling. Inara was watching intently, but she didn't need to know much about this part, seeing how she'd already gone over it with Kaylee and Simon earlier. Wash and Zoë sat side by side, and Book hovered a little away from the others, near where Simon was standing, by the vent where River had taken to hiding. She hadn't come out all day, and he was still trying to convince her to emerge.

"First team's gonna be the group goes in and does the work," Kaylee continued. "Simon reckons it should be Cap'n, Jayne, and me."

"Makes sense," Mal said, nodding. "You do the work getting us there, and me and Jayne do the breaking."

"That's right," she said, nodding.

"And Zoë?" Wash asked, piping in. "You're taking Zoë, right?"

"Gettin' to that," Kaylee said. "Second team's job is attendin' the party. They're gonna keep an eye on Dumont and his people, let us know if anything is going on we should worry over. That's gonna be 'Nara and Simon."

Nods followed that, though Mal looked up to Inara, and Kaylee saw the unpleasantness in his expression.

"We're the best for this, Mal," Inara assured him. "Simon and I are both experienced in moving through upper class environments."

"I know, I but that don't mean I like it any more," Mal replied, crossing his arms. There was a moment's tension, before he looked away back toward Kaylee. "Who's the third team?"

"They're our backup, 'case something goes wrong," Kaylee continued, glad that the moment had passed and things were relaxing. "Wash, Zoë, Shepherd, an' River. Things don't go according to the plan, they fly in and scoop us up."

"Womack might not like that," Book commented. "He'll likely object if we take too heavy a hand on this."

"Yeah, like we care if his britches get tangled up," Jayne grunted. Mal nodded.

"We're already going to burn down his lab anyway, but the Shepherd's right. Womack wants this as quiet as these things go. We gotta keep that front and center in our heads while this job is happening. Least we got me and Jayne, and we're going in heavy in case things go badly."

"Um," Kaylee began, and then hesitated. Mal looked back to her, and she winced.

"Can't take guns in there, Cap'n," she said, bracing herself.

* * *

Crime was _**dancing**_ about the dining room, _on little ballet toes_. It had been a while since her fingers had _felt_ a dance too, and there was a place on the floor for her, if she wanted to take it.

It needed to be taken, she knew. She was supposed to be functional, but she needed to prove it to Captain Hammer.

The datapad _**bit**_ into her, held tight to her chest. Its data _tickled_ and _floated_, forming into **myriad shapes **as it drifted through her mind, _sorting__ and computing __**and translating **_into functions and information.

The **name** rose up, unbidden, and she _drank it _in, understanding what was going to happen.

Locations, times, escort, positions . . . .

A plan _**sprouted**_.

Simon was calling to her, quiet and worried.

She let the **seed** _grow_, and _watered it _with _thought_, _fed it _with the plan in the dining hall, and illuminated it with necessity.

She would need to stay crazy for a while.

Simon's voice, and his concern, _caressed _her again. She could _taste_ the _odd uncertainty_, and understood why. Kaylee's words echoed inside _**the caverns of his voice and his braincase**_, and they _**warmed her **_even as they settled into his synapses. They were spouting seeds of their own, of comprehension and changes to the root network of his emotions and feelings.

He was trying to see his sister as a woman, not as a baby.

He called her name again, not wanting to climb up and bring her down. He wanted her to come out on her own, even if his concern wouldn't let him say that out loud.

Hand over hand, she slipped forward. The datapad rested alone where she left it. No need to arouse suspicion.

Her fingers emerged into open air, and she felt his _**warmth**_ run through her digits. She let him help her down, let him play big brother like he wanted to but now was afraid to.

Soon enough, she told herself. She would talk to him, and show him that she really wasn't a child, and that it was okay to treat her as functional.

Until then, she would need to be crazy.

For now, she found her place in the **crime dance**, and _flowed along _with the music.

_

* * *

_

"No guns?"

The phrase made Mal's stomach twist. Of course, he'd had to go without his sidearm before, usually on a untrusting meet or during a pickup at a particularly ornery settlement. But when he went on a job, he always carried, if he could help it.

"Can't go in with guns, Cap'n'," Kaylee replied, shaking her head. She pointed at the schematics, now the much more detailed versions Womack had supplied for them. He could hear River had finally emerging from the vents, covered in dust, but she seemed entirely unbothered by it.

"See these here? Here, here, and over here?" On the schematics, he saw little bulging thingamabobs that he'd never identify with his limited technical expertise.

"Sorta," he replied.

"Them's weapons scanners," the mechanic explained. "Same as the kind they had on Persephone. Walk in with a gun, and it'll go off in a wink."

"Alright, so we go in with knives, make it quick and quiet if we have to," Jayne replied, burly arms crossed over his chest. Mal frowned at that. He wasn't averse to knives, but he knew that when you killed a man up close like that, it was usually either long and brutal, or quick and even more brutal.

"Metal is treacherous," mumbled River, and they glanced her way. "If it wants to take joy, it will betray . . . sorry." She shook her head when she saw the confused looks the others were giving her.

"Take your time," Simon assured her, and she nodded.

"Metal will set off the detectors," she said, slowly. "The eyes see hostile shapes."

"You're saying," Mal said, piecing together her meaning, "That we take anything inside that's metal and shaped like a weapon, it'll pick it up?" She nodded.

"We can get ceramic knives," Zoë piped in. "There's a factory a few planets over that makes ceramic tools. We can order some from there, get 'em shipped in inside a week."

"That won't set off the detectors, will it?" Mal asked, to which River and Kaylee shook their heads.

"What about ceramic guns?" Jayne asked. "We can slip those in."

"The detectors are sniffers, too," Kaylee said. "They'll pick up gunpowder, laser batteries, coilguns, whatever. And explosives, too."

"No grenades then," Jayne hissed, clearly unhappy.

"Conventional explosives, maybe," Book added. He'd been standing at the back of the dining hall, not directly joining in the planning, but not remaining outside of it either. "From what I understand, these detectors don't pick up inert or exotic chemicals that can be mixed."

"To make bombs?" Kaylee asked, and she shrugged. "Dunno, 'splosives aren't my thing."

"They shouldn't," Jayne cut in. "What kind are you thinking, preacher?"

Book frowned, and Mal noticed he seemed a bit uncomfortable at being called that.

"I'm thinking a simple molotov," Book replied. "Alcohol-based explosives. Most detectors don't pick them up."

"We'll need something if we're to burn up the lab," Mal added. "You think you two can rig something up?"

"Molotov cocktails are real simple," Jayne said, nodding. "I've made plenty in my time. We can do that."

"If you're going in unarmed," Zoe said, "Shouldn't I be with you?"

"Need you on the boat, in case this goes wrong," Mal replied, and then looked to River. "I wouldn't be averse to bringing Albatross, though, if you're up to it."

"You're not," Simon said, shaking his head, and Mal split him with a glare that would kill small animals.

"Doctor," Mal said quietly, about to remind him who was Captain, but Simon cut him off.

"River's in no shape to go with you," the doctor pointed out. "Especially considering how she reacted to what Dumont was doing last time. Being near a medical facility like that was hard enough on her the first time, and I don't think we should risk another post-traumatic event."

"Simon," River said, shaking her head. Mal, on the other hand, found himself agreeing with Simon, no matter how bad he didn't like the idea of him and the Doctor agreeing on anything.

"No," Mal said, nodding. "Doc's right."

"I can-" River protested.

"Its alright, Albatross," Mal said, holding up a hand. "You've already risked enough for us. And if we're needin' your specialties inside there, things will already be going crazy enough as-is. Your brother's right, we don't want to risk you having another bad reaction."

She frowned, a flicker of disappointment on her features, but finally settled back. She didn't nod or agree, but she didn't argue either, which was good enough.

"While I'm heartened that we've got something resembling a plan," Wash said, cutting back into the conversation. "What are we going to do with Womack? If we do this job in two weeks, that'll give him all the time he needs to run over his ship and render our insurance moot. And then we're humped."

"I agree," Mal said, not pleased at that idea. "Let's just let him conjure he's got us cornered, though."

* * *

Womack slouched in his chair, gloved fingers drumming on the console before him, eyes flicking over incoming reports. The last three days had been anxious ones, as he quietly tracked both police reports and _Serenity_. He wasn't surprised when the latter quietly remained in orbit, no doubt planning both the heist and how to best stab him in the back. But then, that was only natural.

He'd been checking the reports and following information on that ship's history, if only to find out what other little secrets Captain Reynolds had, especially regarding escaped fugitives. Of course, there were countless fugitives running loose through Alliance space, and more than a few were using Fireflies, but a pair of names kept popping up: Simon and River Tam, both of whom had last been seen on a Firefly transport at Persephone. Checking Reynolds' history showed a spotty record of his travels, but he had been on Persephone more than a year back at roughly the time that those warrants had been issued, and they _had _been tracked to a Firefly.

It wasn't solid evidence, and he doubted he could pin the fugitives to Reynolds, but then, he didn't need to. A little fabrication was all it took.

But that was just a backup, in case he ever had to deal with them again, or simply needed ammunition to hurt Reynolds further. It never hurt to be prepared.

There was movement behind him, and he looked back over his shoulder at the entrance to the bridge. Skunk walked in, looking for all the 'verse like a giant armored ball of mylar in his pressure suit. The big man held up a small, flat object, and grinned.

"Found it."

That got Womack's eyebrows up, and he rose from his slouch.

"The insurance?" Womack asked, and the portly man nodded.

This had been the fifth time Skunk had gone over the exterior of the ship to find the surprise Reynolds' crew had left for him. Womack had been adamant about finding whatever they'd hidden on his boat, and had started to worry that it was just a bluff, but the unexpected vindication was a welcome surprise.

It also meant he had the upper hand now.

"Where was it?" he asked, standing up.

"Inside the engine extruders," said Skunk. "Slipped it right into an alcove where the exhaust would mask it without boiling it. Nearly impossible to find."

"Clever," Womack said, grinning and taking the bomb. "Good job, Skunk."

"We gonna tell Reynolds?" he asked, to which Womack shook his head.

"No. We're going to let Reynolds think he has the upper hand with his little toy," he explained. "I want him to think he's got us by the balls. It'll make turning the tables on him later all the more . . . _satisfying_."

* * *

Five days had passed since the plan had been laid down, and Kaylee and Simon kept revising it whenever they got new information, mostly provided by Inara as she kept tabs on the upcoming party. The crew as a whole were still on edge, which was something Mal could feel keenly as he walked through his ship, and he knew exactly why: they had nothing to do.

Most of the brainwork was being done by Doc and Kaylee, and there wasn't a whole lot of pre-heist physical prep work that needed to be done. At least with the Ariel heist, he and Zoe and Jayne had kept busy going over their scripts, and memorizing the maps, while Wash had stayed hip deep in prepping the ambulance. For this job, they didn't have much more to do than walk around and worry – especially with the danger from Womack hanging over their heads.

Perhaps that was why he'd volunteered to pick up the extra gear they'd need for the job, and why when he returned with a hefty crate in hand, Zoe was waiting for him.

"No troubles?" she asked, to which Mal shook his head.

"Easy-peasy," he replied, clambering out of the shuttle. "Got the stuff Kaylee asked for, and picked up our ceramic weapons. How's the rest?" He glanced down below at the deck, where he saw Jayne sitting by a couple of crates with some bottles and a few sets of chemicals. Book was hovering nearby, and the two were talking quietly while the mercenary mixed the chemicals together.

"Jayne and Preacher are cooking up something unpleasant," Zoe replied, and he nodded, setting the crate down.

"Not too big a fan of fire, but I'm not impartial to its uses," he said, and she nodded. There was a pause in the conversation, which Mal had learned meant Zoe had something to say and was measuring her words. "Something the matter?"

"Sir, Womack wanted us to do more than just destroy equipment," she said. "He wanted us to wipe out the scientists, too."

"I know," Mal said, quietly.

"I don't like it, sir," she said. "You were right that we weren't supposed to be assassins or murderers. I know we've killed a lot of folks, but they always were trying to kill us back at one point or another. This is wrong."

"It don't sit well with me either," Mal said. "I'm still working up a way to make sure we don't have to kill folks what ain't deserving of it, even if they are gut-runners."

"Womack wants them _all_ dead, sir," she pointed out, and he nodded.

"'Less Womack is going to go in there and check to make sure all the bodies are corpsified, he won't be able to confirm it," Mal replied. "Worst comes to worst, we've got our insurance."

"And if Womack finds it?" she asked.

"He won't," Mal said, and then paused, seeing the look in her eyes, that demanded a good reason for that confidence. "'Cause he . . . won't. In any case, I'm trying to think of a backup, in case it does turn out offways."

There was a bit of silence between the two of them, and as they watched, Book moved away and left Jayne to his mixing work. Finally, Zoe spoke up again.

"Sir, part of the reason I'm worried here is because I'm not pulling the trigger," she said, voice quiet. "I know the others are thinking that you want me to stay back here on the ship because I'm expecting, but that's not it, is it?"

Mal let that hang in the air. They both knew about Zoë's history, particularly after the war. They both knew what she'd done as part of the Dust Devils after the battle for Hera had been lost, and how he'd finally pulled her out of that.

He knew that if anyone on the ship could kill a helpless man in cold blood, it was either him or her. They both had the experience, and had both done it far too many times, and deep down, Mal knew he was keeping her on _Serenity_ because if it came down to it, he wanted that blood on _his_ hands, not on hers. Zoë's were already stained enough.

"Blood don't wash off easy," he said after a while, which was all he needed to say to confirm his first mate's suspicions. He gestured to the slight bulge of her stomach. "You're expecting a little one. Won't do for a mother."

"Sir, you don't have to take this all on your own," she said, to which he shook his head and pushed off the railing. He bent down and scooped up the crate.

"I do," he said, voice almost lost in the rumble of the air processors, and then moved off, leaving his first mate alone on the catwalk.

* * *

The scent of the mixing chemicals still hung in the air around him as he walked back to his bunk. As he got close, however, Shepherd Book paused, hearing a voice drifting out of his room.

_"-following cessation of the combat exercise, Blank One One Seven and Empath One Three Seven were noted in close proximity, and had remained in proximity for the majority of the exercise. Observation of their movements during the exercise showed that both combatants remained in physical contact with one another for ninety-one percent of the exercise, most commonly touching at the shoulders, posterior, or legs. One Three Seven immediately submitted to security personnel without needing mimetic deactivation phrase, which Doctor Mathias is citing as continued signs of emotional improvement in the subject." _

He paused, frowning, and crossed his arms. Book waited until he heard the recording come to a halt, indicating an end to the audio file, and then slid open the door to his room.

The Shepherd came to a halt again when he saw her. She was laying on her back on the floor, legs propped up on the bed with her bare toes hanging in the air. One of her hands was idly playing with her hair, while the other was tracing a line along the top of her chest, along the fabric of her dress. Her eyes were blank and unfocused, and the datapad - with the data needle slid into the entry port - sat beside her head, inches away from her ear.

"River?" Book asked, sliding the door closed. Her eyes remained unfocused, and seemed glazed over, so he knelt beside her, touching the girl's shoulder. "River? Are you okay?"

She flinched at his touch, but then her eyes focused. They flicked toward the elderly man, and she spent several seconds staring at him.

"Daddy?" she asked, eyes going distant again, and Book frowned.

"No, River," he said. She had that thousand-yard stare she tended to adopt when her mind was elsewhere. "Its me, Shepherd Book."

"Shepherd?" Her eyes focused again, and her brow furrowed. "You are a paradox. A father without children."

Book relaxed. Making random cognitive leaps like that meant that she was pulling herself back to reality.

"That's quite true, I suppose," he offered with a smile, and extended a hand toward her. She didn't take it, and instead turned her head to look at the datapad.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, staring at it. "I trespassed."

"It's not a problem, River," he said, shaking his head. In truth, he had been worried about whether he should let her listen to the information he'd recovered thus far, and whether it would help her or simply bring back bad memories.

It was then he noticed her other hand, and how it had kept tracing lines over her chest. It paused at one of the tiny, faint white lines visible in her skin, and he felt a sudden pang of sympathy and understanding.

She finally rose, pulling her legs free from the top of the bed and holding her other hand out, to let him help her to her feet. She picked up the datapad and held it toward him, lips pressing together tightly as she did so.

"Did you learn anything?" he asked, to which she shook her head.

"Names," she said, shrugging, in a girlish fashion that was oddly comforting. "Nothing useful. Most of it was already lodged inside my gray beforehand."

"They mentioned a name," Book said. "One of the other subjects. He was one of them, wasn't he?"

She froze, and he saw her lips press together again. Her eyes broke away, flicking around the room for a moment, and then closing, and Book suddenly felt as if he had intruded into something far too painful or personal.

"John," she said, her tone quiet. "Yes. I knew him." She shook her head, touching her temples. "This is muddy. I need to be part of the bed before it becomes quicksand."

"I'm sorry," Book said, withdrawing and inferring her meaning. He'd touched something _very_ painful.

"No, I'm at fault," River said, and moved away, toward the door. She reached it and started to slide it open. "I intruded without shielding myself properly." She looked back at him, but only for a moment, then turned back to the door.

"There's nothing wrong with wanting to know," Book replied, to which she shook her head again.

"I already know too much," she whispered. "I shouldn't be asking for more when my cup overflows with poison."

She glanced back at the old preacher once again, and he caught a myriad hurricane of emotions in her eyes, before she quickly shoved the door open and disappeared outside.

* * *

Two weeks had passed since Serenity put in over Silverhold, leaving them only a day from starting the heist. Two weeks that had involved extortion, veiled threats, hidden explosives, frantic preparatory activity, and more anxiety than Malcolm Reynolds could stomach.

Worst of all, Mal thought, he had Womack once again standing in the hold of his ship.

When they'd sent a wave informing Womack that they were ready, the Allied Enforcement agent had demanded that he go over the plan personally. Mal reluctantly agreed, once again accompanied by Jayne and Zoe. No sense in letting Womack see any more faces than he needed to, and the captain was worried that the agent could have dug up information on his fugitive crewmen. At least the agent had come in alone, instead of bringing his goons with him.

Mal spared the details. Womack only needed - or seemed to care about - the general plan. He either respected or understood their need for privacy. Revealing too much information would compromise _Serenity's_ crew, and Womack seemed to know that if pushed too far, Mal would probably risk dumping his antagonists out an airlock and running.

For his part, Womack simply nodded, glancing over the blueprints Mal had laid out on the floor while Jayne and Zoe acted all threatening-like. He didn't say much until Mal got to the end, where he mentioned _Serenity_ would act as their backup in case things went wrong.

"Hold it," he hissed, raising a hand for emphasis. "That's not happening."

"My muscular butt its not," Jayne grumbled, before Mal glared at him to be quiet - exactly as they'd planned to react to the first objection.

"We need a contingency plan in case something unexpected happens," Mal explained. "And unless you're the expert at heist-making, I suggest you let us do the planning for them what's not expected."

"I got no objection to a contingency," Womack replied, crossing his arms. "But it ain't involving your ship. This tub is staying grounded until the job's done."

"You don't want to run the risk of it being backtracked," Zoe commented, and Womack gave her an oily smile.

"Clever, and correct," he replied. "This job relies on discretion. A Firefly freighter isn't terribly subtle."

"Well, I'm sorry if my ship runs the chance of ruining your cunningly concealed firestorm," Mal said, borrowing a good line from the good doctor. "But _Serenity's_ the only thing gonna be fast enough to pull our butts out of the hot place if things get bad."

"Ain't happenin'," Womack said. "Your ship so much as hovers off a landing pad while this job is going down, and I hit the whistle, _dong ma_?"

Jayne's mouth opened to object in a manner that would make unfavorable comparisons between Womack's organs and cattle manure, but Mal cut him off.

"Sure," he said, shrugging. "Shiny."

"Good. Now, the rest of the plan?" Womack asked, and Mal continued to lay out the rest of the job.

As he spoke, though, Mal suppressed the urge to pound Womack's face into hamburger, and started working up contingencies to get their contingencies working. He'd be damned if his air support was going to stay grounded.

* * *

"So," Wash said, a day afterward, "the plan's been laid out, revised, hammered, punched, dropped, kicked about, and set on fire, but I think it can work."

Wash was standing in the cargo bay, the upcoming party less than three hours away, and less than two hours before they'd be setting off in two separate shuttles. His arms were crossed tightly over his chest, and he did his best to hide his nervousness, even though he was one of those least likely to get into any trouble.

To his left were Mal, Jayne, and Kaylee, in what Wash had nicknamed the "ninja costumes." They were wearing dark coveralls festooned with a number of pouches, and harnesses containing their climbing and maneuvering gear, and around their necks hung gas masks. Their ceramic knives were sheathed on their hips, and they wore several canisters of flammables on their hips opposite the blades. None of them wore any personal effects, even though Mal was monumentally unhappy about not having his favored sidearm.

Wash noticed Kaylee seemed extra uncomfortable _carrying _aweapon, but she was doing a good job trying to keep calm and controlled.

Inara and Simon stood to his right, dressed up in what Mal had said was "the finest frippery money could buy." Compared with Kaylee, the two of them looked perfectly at ease, Inara in a dark red and gold dress that seemed to contain double digits of layers of fabric, while Simon had dressed up in the nicest suit he had. The doctor kept glancing nervously to Kaylee throughout the whole briefing.

River, Zoe, and Book hovered nearby, peering over the plans. The Shepherd had a grave look about him, while Zoe was matching Wash for quiet anxiety - though he knew she was doing a whole lot better job hiding her worries than her husband. River was . . . River. She'd perched on a crate and was absently watching the whole affair, as spaced out now as she'd been for the rest of the weeks leading up to the job. Wash was getting worried about her, as she hadn't been this distant and quiet in months. At least she hadn't tried pouring soup in the engine.

The plan was that Wash would skim his shuttle over the tops of the poison clouds and inside the perimeter of the island community, using a broadcasted code that matched that of the patrol craft and drones that belonged to local security - codes provided by Womack. He'd fly up under Dumont's estate, at which point Kaylee, Jayne, and Mal would breach a lower access duct and sneak inside.

Meanwhile, Inara and Simon would take off in her shuttle, land a the estate normally, and go attend the party.

Meanwhile, Wash, Zoe, Book, and River would stay back at _Serenity_ and twiddle their thumbs as they sat on a nice safe landing pad as close to Dumont's estate that they could get and hope that the others didn't get themselves horribly killed.

Fun.

"Everyone knows their jobs?" Mal asked, and there were nods and affirmatives.

"What about our contingencies?" Zoe asked, to which Mal shrugged.

"We still got our insurance on Womack's boat," he said, "and he ain't hinted that he's found it, but you can bet he'll be watching _Serenity_ like a hawk. Wash?"

"If I fire up the engine and he's in the hemisphere, he'll notice," the pilot said, shrugging. "I can maybe pull a thruster run, and dip into the poison clouds. That might scatter his scanners. Worst comes to worst I can do terrain-following flying, but if his boat's eyes are good, that won't do much to shake him."

"Do what you can, if it comes to it," Mal said, and patted the pouch on his left breast, holding the emergency transmitter Kaylee had whipped up. They were all carrying one. "Any last-second worries?"

"The plan isn't simple," came River's voice, and everyone looked up at her. Her eyes were unsurprisingly unfocused. "It's coated in mud. All of it is brown."

"Right," Mal said, nodding, and quite clearly having no clue. River was being extra obfuscating today.

"I think she's worried that a lot can go wrong," Book commented, and Mal nodded.

"On that I agree," he said, glancing about the room to his crew. "I don't like this job, or none of what it's got in it, but it needs doing, and I plan on turning it profitable. Once the fires start flying about, I doubt we're going to have to worry too much about being sneaky. We'll do some smash and grab on the way out. Meantime, everyone needs to stay ready, and do your jobs."

"Doc, Kaylee," he said, nodding toward them, "You two came up with a good notion and a better plan, and we stick by that, everything will be shiny. This is nothing we ain't done before."

At those words, he glanced to Jayne, and then to Zoe, both of whom nodded. Wash caught something in the air between them, something he had no real experience of, except that he'd seen it before. It was that dark look he'd seen on Haven, and later, when they'd been trying to save Jayne and River from Niska.

"So," Mal finished, "let's do it."

They began to break up, with Mal passing by Inara and the two of them speaking a word, and a pair of nervous smiles passing between them. Wash cut across the room to Zoe, squeezing her hand, and not needing to say anything else. Kaylee and Simon pulled into a hug, followed by a worried kiss and a few anxious words of their own. Book stepped toward Jayne and offered him a bit of luck, which the mercenary gruffly accepted.

Kaylee paused by Inara, and gave her a quick hug and a light kiss on the cheek, their usual farewell.

"Keep an eye on Mal," the Companion asked, and Kaylee nodded.

"Don't let the doctor get in any trouble either," she offered, and Inara smiled. That was something that she had started doing recently, referring to Simon in a mock-detached tone, which itself was full of affection. It was a funny paradox.

Simon and Jayne, meanwhile, paused, and exchanged quick nods.

"Watch over Kaylee, would you?" the doctor asked, and Jayne grunted, seeming almost annoyed by that.

"Yeah," he grunted, and moved past the doctor. Simon frowned, confused, but that lasted only a moment, until he considered how gruffly doting Jayne was over Kaylee and now River as well, and realized he might have implied that the mercenary didn't care.

By the time his came to that conclusion, Jayne was already across the bay and rumbling up the steps after Kaylee. he paused and glanced toward River, and she gave him a quick nod and smile. he grunted again, and continued on.

Wash watched it all, drinking all those little moments among his family, and managed a satisfied nod and sigh.

And then they were apart, the group scattering to their respective shuttles, while Zoe headed toward the bridge. Wash worked his way up toward the second shuttle, but as he passed the boxes River was perched on, her hand snaked up to tug on his pant leg.

"Hey, _xiao gui_," he said, leaning down beside her.

"That's Jayne's word," she mumbled, seeming a bit cross, and he shrugged.

"Sorry," he offered, and then looked over her face, noting the distant but present worry in her eyes. "Something wrong?"

"You are a leaf," she said, and then glanced away. "But there won't be any wind. You'll have to soar on your own."

"Uh, okay," Wash said, confused. "Are you saying . . . ." he frowned, puzzling through her words. "You're saying I might not have backup on this?"

"The wind is in the ducts," she said, closing her eyes. "I don't . . . ."

"You don't know if you can copilot yet," Wash offered, and she nodded, biting her lip. He felt a pang of sympathy. Whatever she'd found in Dumont's vault must have really rattled her to still be affecting her after this much time. Or maybe it wasn't Dumont.

"Tell the truth, this planet's been bothering me a lot," he said. "Wouldn't complain if we gave it a wide berth for a long while."

"Its sticky," she said, nodding. "Sticky with blood."

"No argument there," he said, and reached down to pat her shoulder. She managed a slight smile back up at him. "Just worry about yourself, _xiao teng_."

She frowned, rolling that word around in her mind, and smiled again.

"That's a good word for Wash," she whispered, and he nodded.

"See you when I get back," he said, and rose, moving off, at least glad he'd made her smile. That was one ray of goodness in all this crazy.

"You keep your eyes and ears open, okay, Albatross?" Mal said, standing under River's crate, and she blinked, then looked down at him. The smile he'd had when Wash passed by faded, and her gaze drifted away for a second, before shifting back to his.

"You shouldn't rely on my watercolors," she said. "They run too much."

"You ain't let me down yet," Mal said, giving her his best half-smile. It didn't seem to reassure her; in fact, it just made River seem more upset. After a few moments, he started to move away, realizing he was somehow making things worse, but then one of her legs jabbed down, poking him in the shoulder.

"Captain," she hissed, and he looked back up at her, to see a serious expression on her face.

"You do not have permission to be dumb and die. _Dong ma_?"

At any other time, and with any other person saying those words, it would have been cute and amusing, but River seemed dead serious.

That got Mal a mite worried.

"Something you're seeing ahead, Albatross?" he asked. She was quiet for a moment.

"Don't rely on me," she whispered, and then closed her eyes. "Please . . . don't rely on me."

At River's plea, Mal frowned, and took a step back toward her, at that moment feeling a kernel of dread working its way into his gut. The girl was scared, somehow, maybe of herself, and he reached up, taking her little hand in his calloused fingers.

"Albatross, I trust you," he said. "Just as I trust anyone else on my boat. 'Cept Jayne, on occasion. Even when you don't trust yourself. _Dong ma_?"

She was silent, and if anything, his words seemed to be making her more upset.

"I won't be dumb, okay?" he asked. "I ain't gonna die." He gave her another half-smile. "I'm too pretty to die."

She nodded, but didn't open her eyes to confirm it. After a moment, Mal finally squeezed her wrist again and let go, before stepping away to get back to his unwilling thieving.

* * *

Another hour had passed, and the poison clouds glittered far below as the shuttle came about. Inara found herself with a sense of deja vu, except in this case it was she who was flying the shuttle instead of Mal. The dark lumps of Dumont's shipping complex rose up on either side of the landing zone, but in contrast, his elegant, spiraling mansion gleamed like a jewel in the night sky, blotting out the stars.

"Nervous?" she asked as she shuttle settled in, and glanced back at Simon who exhaled.

"Not terribly," he said. "My greatest worry is that there'll be someone down there who knows me."

"Judging by the invitation, most of the people who'll be attending either won't recognize you, or who won't care if they do," she replied. "I saw a lot of names connected with upper-class crime on the list."

"Good, then we'll be right at home, I suppose," he said, rising from his seat as the shuttle settled in. "Being criminals, and being respectable, though not both at the same time, I believe."

"You _are_ nervous," Inara said, and the doctor paused, and then let out a long sigh. He nodded.

"Its been more than a couple of years since I last thrust myself into upper-class society," he said. "After I started hunting for River, I just didn't care about galas or parties or functions. I mean, I still have all the etiquette and proper manners down, but . . . ."

"You'll do fine," Inara said. "Just relax, and stay close by me."

In truth, she was glad for his anxiety. Inara knew that Simon's tendency to worry, combined with his surgical attention to detail, would help translate into a degree of wariness that, coupled with her own intimate understanding of people's actions and body language, would allow them to keep an eye on their surroundings.

Mal had been skeptical about this aspect of the plan, wondering how they could keep watch while up to their hips in "Core-ward nonsense" that was removed from the actual areas where the heist was going on. To her surprise, though, he'd seemed to accept Simon's explanation without a lot of fuss, especially when she'd backed it up. There were a thousand subtle indicators in every single step of a person's body, let alone in how they spoke, or in their facial expressions, or in the cast of their eyes. Inara knew them intimately, and she could tell whether a person was on alert or relaxed simply by the way he stood and looked around a room.

By watching the guards and staff - and Dumont himself - Inara and Simon could get a judge of the state of the entire mansion, and relay that information very quickly, either to the infiltration team or to _Serenity_.

And most of all, Inara had confidence in Simon, even if he didn't have it in himself - after all, he had saved River from the Academy, a feat that told volumes about both his ability to stay cool under pressure and his capacity at deception. Compared with that, pretending to be a foppish aristocrat at a high-social function would be child's play.

The door to the shuttle opened, Simon leading and stepping outside to hold the door open for Inara. Two mansion staffers in gray and gold uniforms were waiting outside to take their names and direct them to the mansion.

The trip was quick, just as Inara remembered, entering a hover-limousine and rapidly traveling to the mansion itself. This time, however, it landed at an outside landing pad a couple of stories up over the main entrance, and the pair emerged onto a gilded, gleaming pad where they were greeted by both household security and attendants, who led them further into the building.

"Money to burn," Simon whispered, faintly contemptuous, and Inara smiled inwardly. Simon had learned what so many aristocrats hadn't: that there were far more beautiful things to spend your fortune on than plating your landing pad with gold. She knew he'd spent only a fraction of the money that had gone into one room of Dumont's mansion, but he was the richest person in the entire building.

"Inara Serra!" the attendant at the entrance announced, "And escort!"

Eyes turned to Inara and Simon, and she moved forward, ahead of him to draw all the attention. Not that she needed to bother with the motion, as most of those present had their eyes locked solidly on her, with few - mostly female - eyes even turning to regard Simon himself.

A second later, the attendant was announcing another name, and Inara scooted aside as gracefully as a spring breeze, Simon following. She turned her gaze across the lush entrance room, seeing the same vast gallery she'd remembered from their last trip here, complete with gilded carpet, marble statues and railings, perfectly cleaned and polished walls and spotless hangings. She'd been among the highest echelons of Alliance society, and this room ranked in the top five of the most ostentatiously overdone chambers she'd ever seen.

Dumont certainly knew how to waste his money.

"Miss Serra!" came a familiar call, and Inara turned to find herself facing Dumont. He seemed an exact image of the man she'd met only a few weeks back, hair and mustache impeccably groomed and wearing a spotless black and gold suit. His arm was around a pretty young blonde girl wearing a dress that seemed vaguely uncomfortable on her – a hired escort, non-Companion, in her early twenties.

"Ah, such a pleasure to see you again, my dear," Dumont said, extending a hand, which she took. Once more, he kissed it with precise politeness and poise. His eyes then flicked to her side. "And you have brought a guest. An honor to meet you . . . ."

"Nathaniel Doerner," Simon replied, tone stiff and formal, echoing the tone River had used a few weeks ago.

"Ah, I see it now," Dumont said, nodding. "The family resemblance is uncanny. How is the young Allison doing, may I ask?"

"Well," Simon replied, tone still stiff and formal. "She recommended this auction to me, and I had already contracted Miss Serra here for the week. It was only natural we attend."

"Ah, so you're a native of Silverhold?" Dumont asked, still smiling. "I suppose I can't know every well-off man on the world."

"Only visiting," Simon replied, a bit too quickly for Inara's taste. Dumont was probing him, she could immediately tell.

"Private vessel," Inara explained. "We arranged for a meeting on this planet, to see the clouds."

"So, you don't travel on _Serenity _with Miss Serra," Dumont said, to which Simon shook his head.

"Such a vessel is a decent craft, but not mine," he replied. "Pardon me for asking, but what time is the auction?"

"An hour from now," Dumont said, and then sighed theatrically. "I fear that you will not be able to participate, as only registered guests may bid, but you are most welcome to watch."

"Thank you, I believe we shall," Simon said, and Inara nodded to Dumont.

"I was a pleasure to see you again," Inara offered, and she quietly pressed on Simon's arm. He took the hint, gave a short incline of his head.

"Very well," Dumont said, still smiling. "Enjoy the party, my friends."

And then he was away, greeting the next group of guests. Inara moved Simon quickly away, and she glance dup at his face, to see a hint of distress there.

"That wasn't pleasant," he whispered.

"Never been much of one for dancing around polite society, I suppose," Inara replied, and he shook his head.

"That was the most polite interrogation I've ever undergone," he added, and she managed a small smile.

"Well, since we've endured that, the rest of this party shouldn't be that difficult. Just keep your eyes open." And hopefully, they could stay clear of Dumont.

"Right," he said, and then the music began to swell into a familiar tune. His voice shifted back to the stiff, accented tone. "Well, to keep up appearances, Miss Serra, shall we dance?"

* * *

As the party unfolded overhead, a dark form cut underneath the flock of hovering islands, unnoticed by the security patrols and only given a cursory laser examination by the drones. They let it pass without further incident, and the scarab-like hull flitted below the isle of Shin Yan Dumont, before rising up toward the understructure and settling in.

Proximity sensors were alerted as the vessel approached, but were calmed by the shuttle's transponder signals, and Wash brought the ship close in – within a dozen meters. He cut in the hovering thrusters, and settled in, fingers tightly laced around the control sticks. Any closer might set of the island's own proximity alerts.

Behind him, he heard Mal calling to the others as they pulled hoods and masks over their faces and started out the shuttle's side airlock. The issue here, as it had been with the Lassiter heist, was not that he had to hold a specific height – autopilot could do that easily. However, he had to hold relative height with the structure, which was gently rising and falling as its own anti-gravity technology worked automatically. Though the island's hovertech moved smoothly enough that it only ever rose or fell or shifted laterally a few meters in the wind and constant air turbulence, that distance was enough to make a serious difference on the human scale, and thus require constant corrections on his part.

Wash watched nervously between several different feeds and sensor displays: the external camera showing Mal, Jayne, and Kaylee clambering up onto the top of the little shuttle, the laser rangefinder keeping him aware of just how far away from the underside of the island he was, and the radar display telling him if any security patrols were approaching.

No one was coming anywhere near the island, which was good, because they were clear and obvious, hovering right there in the open. The shuttle's lights were off and it was the dead of night, but the thermals from the shuttle's engines were all a good sensor would need to spot them.

Up above, Wash could see Kaylee waving her arms and pointing, followed by Jayne shouldering a magnetic grapple launcher, one of the "toys" they'd ordered along with the knives. He fired it at the door located on the underside of the island, and it attached next to the portal. A few seconds later, he set the device onto the shuttle's hull and started climbing. Moments later, Kaylee and Mal followed suit, attaching their harnesses to the cable line and making their way up. Once they reached the underside of the island, Kaylee began fiddling with the maintenance door, while Jayne retracted the grapple, detaching it from the hull of the shuttle and reeling it in.

A minute of nervous station-keeping later, the door opened, and Mal slipped inside, followed by Kaylee and Jayne.

"_Wash, we're in," _Mal called over the radio. _"Best make yourself scarce."_

"Done," Wash replied, and began gently steering the shuttle away, and quietly praying they would be alright in there.

The heist was on.

"Good luck, guys," he whispered.

* * *

There was _**brown**_ in the air.

That got her worried. _**Brown**__ was intersecting __with red_.

To be a reader was a strange existence. There were things she could see, that weren't real, or weren't _meant_ to be real, or were occurring simultaneously with other factors that rolled together into a _**ball**_** of **_**punch**_**and **_**violence**__and_**noise**that she couldn't sort out.

Sometimes, she thought she saw the future, but that wasn't true. It was a lie formulated by _the books _she read in all directions and a _fusion of intentions _that **came together **in the _**hydrogen-to-helium reaction **_of a _star's core _that **blew up into **_her brain and hurled __**light into her mind that **_coalesced **into water that poured ****be****t**w_e__e__**n**_ her lips in nonsense.

She didn't see the future. She just saw it under construction.

When she crawled out of bed that night, she saw a thousand possible futures, the **mortar** and **concrete** and **titanium** and _plastic_ and _**ceramics**_ of ten million lives colliding to build a new future, and she sorted it down to the most important intersecting components, and of those components she saw herself, _standing to one side, not a part of it._

Whether that was because she had no role in this construction or because her chosen role would leave her _out _of the construction, she didn't know.

The _metaphor_ grew tired, so she **smashed it with a sledgehammer**.

In its place _**tickled and grappled **_a different idea - an **iron weight **around her neck, _tugging and pulling _her down even as she crawled out of bed and moved through the corridors of her home. It _crushed_ her shoulders as her fingers played over the lock on the crate Mal had brought in, and she pulled out one of the knives Zoe had ordered, the ceramic blades that would ignore security and in turn _**be ignored **_by the _electronic __**eyes and minds**_.

The **weight** _dragged _on her toes as she _slithered_ up the crew corridor, a snake that listened intently as she heard Zoe and Book speaking on the risky job at hand. She could _hear_ the noise of the **weight** as it _clattered_ on the deck behind her, unheard by her family but coming out in a pounding heart and sharp, tight breathing.

The **weight** _cut into her flesh _as she entered the code and then _rang_ against the ladder as she ducked down into the private place that Wash and Zoe made their homes. It _sounded_ on the deck as she opened the cabinet and took out the item stored in there.

Low-profile mesh armor. Zoë's. It **smelled** of her _bravery_ and **rang** with her _fearlessness._

And like a thief in the night, she stole it.

The **weight** was_ there _as she hurried to her room, unseen. Their _minds_ sang to her, whispering absolute lack of suspicion and complete trust in her, and those thoughts _**bit into her brain**_ like _**acid, **_even as she dressed. Dark trousers, dark shirt, a tie to hold her complaining hair back, a dark jacket with a hood, sunglasses to protect her eyes from scanners. The body armor slid over her chest, and the knife clicked into a sheath at her wrist.

She felt the **weight**, and did her best to cast it aside.

But the **guilt** stayed with her: **guilt** at the deception, **guilt** at the manipulation.

She was a broken little girl who couldn't go on the mission because of the _broken glass _of her mind. They pitied her, they sympathized with her, and they left her behind because she couldn't help them because she was _**cracked**_.

She _wasn't cracked_, but she let them believe that.

River Tam picked up the datapad with the invitations on it, and other files she'd been downloading off the Cortex while the others had been plotting the job.

She had nothing to help them. She couldn't go inside the mansion, that much was true. It was _**the Academy **_again. But she _could_ stay here, she could help Wash and Zoe and Book escape from Womack, to protect the others if they were in trouble.

What she was about to do was _selfish_. It was _**wrong, **_and it hurt every part of who and what she was.

She was about to **betray** them.

River looked down at the datapad, and the name she'd found on it, and once again she argued with herself.

She wasn't going to get this chance again. They would run from Silverhold either way, and the window to do what needed to be done was shrinking.

But they were going to need her. They would need their _xiao teng _to watch over them. If she fled now, she would be leaving them without her to watch over them.

She closed her eyes and shook her head. They were _adults_. They could look after themselves.

That was the rationalization _that danced _in her head, but it was a **fake dance**. It was a _**paper ballerina **_that _danced _by puppet strings in her mind as she slipped toward one of the airlocks and quietly disengaged it.

The **weight of guilt **hung over her, pulling her down even as she stepped out of _Serenity's_ warm embrace and into the open air of Silverhold.

She touched the knife in its sheath.

It was all _brown_, and the **guilt** still hung over her.

But there were answers out there.

* * *

Once the dance concluded, they broke apart, Simon moving across the room to get a better view of the whole party. Inara mirrored him on the opposite side, watching the guards at the perimeter of the hall. Two were at the main door, and two more were at another door that she knew led to the room where the auction would be held. A half-dozen others were patrolling the edges of the chamber. All of them were armed with hidden firearms under their coats, which she could tell simply by their gait.

And there were two men in house staff livery to the side, flanking an otherwise unremarkable door. One glance at the plainclothes men told her that they were house guards in disguise.

Simon, she noted, had seen them as well, and he gave her a nod, before resuming watching the security teams walking the perimeter of the grand chamber. Dumont passed by Inara, arm-in-arm with the pretty young girl a third his age, and offered her a salute with his drink, which she answered with one of her own.

As she did so, Inara felt someone close up behind her and pause beside her. She started to turn to look at the man, but froze when he spoke.

"A most enjoyable evening, would you not agree, Miss Serra?"

It wasn't the words that stopped her cold, but the voice. A familiar, quietly terrifying voice that she'd hoped she'd never hear again, and at that moment she was left wishing for a weapon, no matter how useless it might be against him.

"You have me at a disadvantage," she said, her voice forcibly light, and to her surprise, she heard a quiet laugh beside her.

"I suppose that I do, and I apologize," the man said.

"You can call me Nemo."

_

* * *

_

_xiao gui - little demon_

_xiao teng - little dragon_

_

* * *

_

**_Author's Notes: _**Remember when Womack was talking about Browncoats? :D

And yes, River is being sneaky. She may not _like_ having to be sneaky, and its tearing her up emotionally as to whether she should _be_ being sneaky, but she's got her reasons.....

Until next chapter....


	44. Chapter Five: Pindrop

_**Chapter Five: Pindrop**_

__

Twenty died faster than the rest. The figure slipped past, sword flashing up while he was reloading, and sliced into his brain stem. He fell soundlessly.

By now the remaining men were son their second reloads of the fight, but they were spread out and with little cover to protect the blade-wielder. Speed became essential.

One man raised his pistol, sighted it, and jerked as the blade hurtled through the air and into his throat. That made him twenty-one.

Twenty two was in arm's reach by that moment, and the man's rifle snapped across in a swift, competent rifle butt. The figure snapped backwards, body flowing under the striking weapon's stock, and both hands shot up, grabbing his arms. An instant later, as the figure seemed to spin in place, a horrific snapping sound echoed through the air, followed by equally terrible screams.

Twenty-two, his arms snapped backwards and out like giant twigs, was spun around and hurled into the line of fire for twenty-three. As the bullets punched into his body, the now unarmed figure dashed around, ducking in close before the man could shift his aim. The rifle he was holding was snatched up, snapped forward out of his grip, and the stock driven back into his throat.

The figure spun as twenty-three fell, unable to breathe through his shattered throat, and fired two quick bursts. Twenty four fell as he was reloading his revolver, and twenty-five hit the dirt, his right knee shattered.

The rifle fell to the dirt, and the figure stalked forward to twenty-one, who had by now expired. The blade was carefully drawn from his flesh, and the rising sun reflected off its polished, gleaming metal and the crimson fluid coating it.

Without a word, the figure stalked toward twenty-five, weapon held at its side.

* * *

The interior of the mansion was dark, which only made sense, considering everyone was supposed to be at the party. However, that made Malcolm Reynolds wary, as there was a damn good reason to keep restricted areas of the mansion darker: guards with night vision.

Fortunately, in their not-so-very-infinite but adequately-wide-ranging wisdom, Kaylee and Simon had made sure to include night vision equipment in their list of toys for the intrusion. It hadn't cost them much, as the basic technology was a good five hundred years old, but it was more expensive to ship it all the way out onto the Border where useful widgets were restricted.

Mal settled in behind his night vision goggles, which amplified the light up to reasonably ambient levels. These weren't the dirt cheap kind that only made everything look black and white or greenscale. These amplified all reflected light so that it looked like a well-lit room as opposed to a dark one.

They emerged from the maintenance understructure of the mansion-island to find themselves standing in a wide gallery, dark except for the light around the paintings lining the long, wide room. Mal took the lead in, one hand on his knife while the other kept hold of the datapad with the blueprints of the mansion structure. Kaylee was next behind him, and Jayne followed up.

"Awful frippy," Kaylee murmured, but she seemed more curious and awed, as opposed to annoyed like Mal.

"Yeah, that's a common sort of reaction," Mal replied, checking through the night vision specs for any threats. The devices they wore were simple, lightweight goggles that looked less like the heavy-duty gear he'd worn during the war and more like trendy sunglasses. They had the money, so Mal had made sure to spend it on the stuff that would be easiest to use while traveling light.

Jayne followed up behind them, and closed the door behind the group. He carefully wedged a slender pick inside the door that would hold it open yet otherwise make it look like the door was closed. That was their way out if worst came to worst. Kaylee, meanwhile, set a small combination camera microphone by the door, so she could keep an eye on the area they'd passed through. The little device would have been nearly invisible in a well-lit room, let alone a dark one like this.

"Okay," Mal said, "down this hallway, through another gallery of pretty, and we go down a flight of stairs. Vaults should be down thataway."

"Smellin' a lot of if here," Jayne grumbled.

"I said no such thing," Mal countered quietly, to which he shrugged.

"That's why I said I smell it," he replied, but kept watch to their rear. Mal didn't argue the point, and instead took the lead.

They reached the door to the corridor leading to the next gallery, and Mal paused beside it. It was shut and locked. He checked the datapad to make sure it was the right door, and glanced to Kaylee, who nodded. She pulled a cylindrical device off her belt and ran it over the metal doorframe while Mal and Jayne kept watch over the darkened gallery. As she worked, he glanced up at the skylights overhead, seeing the clear night sky over the mansion. There was a fleeting thought in the back of his mind that he really should be up there now, burning as fast as possible away from this island, but it was only that: fleeting.

"How long's this gonna take?" Jayne whispered, voice barely audible. To Mal, already a bit nervous about this whole thing, it sounded like an avalanche.

"Just a sec and I'll get it," Kaylee whispered. "Codes seem to work, just gotta pop the locks so I can feed 'em in. They don't use card readers, probably some fancy keys or something."

A second later, the door hissed and there was a tinny chime, which to Mal felt like an alarm klaxon. He grit his teeth and moved through the sliding door, checking the next room.

"Clear," he whispered, and moved inside, the others following.

* * *

"You will, I hope, forgive me for startling you like this, Miss Serra," he said, tone calm and quiet as he stood beside her. "I understand our last meeting was not the most . . . gentle."

"No, it wasn't," Inara replied, keeping herself under control. It wasn't the most witty of rejoinders she could have come up with, but she was too busy switching gears at the unexpected presence to focus on being clever.

"If I may ask," she continued, not looking up to match his eyes, "what brings you to this party this evening?"

"Business, of course," he replied, his voice shifting to quiet disdain, which she could tell was directed outward at the rest of the party. "I wouldn't see much of a purpose in coming here otherwise." He paused. "Imagine my confusion and surprise at seeing you here."

"As with you, I am here on business," she replied, making sure he could hear the formal response in her voice. "I am assuming that we aren't at odds here, as we were not when we last . . . . met?"

"We," in this case, meant the crew of _Serenity_. She'd made a point to not speak with him - or even be near him - while the Alliance had been repairing the ship. In fact, most of them had kept their distance.

"That would depend on your purpose in being here," Nemo replied, and he took a step forward, turning to face her, and as he did so, Inara felt that quiver of terror she'd had when she'd first met his eyes nearly six months ago. He was clad in a light blue dress suit, a curious cut that was both formal and practical at the same time. His head had been shaved bald, and he wore a pair of blue sunglasses that did well to hide his eyes - doubtless similar in design to Simon's scramblers. And then he did the most terrifying thing she could imagine:

He smiled.

"Of course, do not believe for a heartbeat that I would think you are here as a Companion for Simon Tam," he added. Inara felt another spike of fear that she kept suppressed, and was about to speak again when he raised his hand.

"Do not worry," he said, his tone shifting to one of reassurance. "Remember, when last we met, I was on the receiving end of a very . . . _troubling_ revelation, and I have acted on that." Though she couldn't see his eyes, she saw a shift in the muscles around his eyebrows and cheeks, as if relaxing and shifting to a more distant expression. It lasted for only a heartbeat, before reaffirming into that same quietly amused smile he'd had before.

"If you aren't here for the Alliance," Inara asked, "then why are you here?"

"Business," Nemo replied, and shrugged, somehow making the gesture calm and graceful. "And I do hope that for the sake of both yourself and Captain Reynolds, that said business does not intersect with his."

Before she could reply, he gave her a short, semi-formal bow at the waist, and then turned sharply on his heels. He moved among the crowds and disappeared amidst the myriad of multicolored finery.

After a moment, Inara managed to shake off the quiet terror he had instilled in her. She steadied her breath, not even realizing she'd been holding it while he'd spoken.

_I've faced Reavers before. Compared with them, that man isn't any more dangerous._

She tried to convince herself of that, and part of her steadfastly refused to accept that logic. She reached up to casually brush her hair, touching one of the pins in her curls, and activated the hidden transmitter.

"Mal?" she breathed, hoping he came back fast.

* * *

The plan _had fermented_ for two weeks while she had pretended she was crazy. There were a lot of things that she knew could have gone wrong while preparing it, and there were many things that could go wrong that she couldn't plan for now.

Fortunately, Mal had a tendency _**to kick unforseen problems into the engine**_. She had to trust him, and everyone else.

That was what she kept mumbling to herself, at least. It helped hide the lingering worry that she was betraying them in their hour of need.

She hesitated once the shadow of _Serenity_ had passed, and she lingered outside the spaceport, watching and smelling and tasting and hearing the swirl of _humanity_ in the city beyond. It was a _roiling ocean_ that she could get easily _**drowned**_ within, so she moved carefully**, treading the waters** of her brain and keeping herself under control. There was no _anchor_ nearby, so she had to _**swim carefully**_, _pausing__to take air amidst_ the sea of humanity.

A _**thousand**__-__thousand_ scents assaulted her from every angle as she walked, both from people and machines and locations _and the books_ of the people and the _**data of the machines**_ and **the foundations of the** places. They clogged up her olfactory senses, confusing and disorienting and making her stumble along, uncertain. Eyes occasionally flicked toward her, and a thought crossed her mind, _unpleasant and __**oily**_, and she recoiled both in her mind and in her body.

A hand reached out from her, _laced with alcohol_, driving through the swirl like a white-hot lance of warning.

Stop. **Address**. _Grab. __Twist_.

Snap.

Pressure on the arm, redirection of force, and a flying body.

The swirl _of the __**ocean of humanity**_ went away, and the _oily __thoughts boiled_ and vanished.

There. That problem had been **kicked into the engine**.

Steadying herself, River moved past the maimed drunk and through the rest of the docks.

* * *

The next gallery was as wide as the previous one, though much more choked with displays. Artifacts lined the walls, held in glass display cases and roped off from the central path. The largest and most valuable were set in the middle of the gallery, commanding their own wide areas and dedicated spotlights. All of them were softly lit, which left deep pools of darkness between each museum piece.

Mal moved among them, using the darkness to aid him as he slid along. Jayne moved up the opposite side of the room, and Kaylee trailed behind Mal. There was a balcony overhead, also softly lit and displaying various artifacts, and both Mal and Jayne kept splitting their attention between the ground floor and the upper level. Stars gleamed through another skylight overhead.

As they moved along, Kaylee paused near a long, wide, delicately-woven rug spread across the middle of the floor. It was roped off, which meant it was one of the artsy things, and Mal didn't give it another thought until he saw what Kaylee was staring at.

There was something metallic at one end of the carpet, and a datapad sat next to it. Kaylee peered over the rug, frowning, and crouched beside it.

"Kaylee, no time to be eyeing the artwork," Mal said, edging toward the nearest door and peeking inside. All clear, for now.

"But Cap'n," she protested quietly, "it's a flying carpet."

"I don't care what now _huh_?" Mal blinked, and Kaylee pointed at a few small, flat bulges at the corners of the carpet.

"Anti-grav units," she said. "And that pad controls it."

"Why in the shininess of Buddha would they make a real life flying carpet?" Mal muttered, his curiosity getting the better of him for a moment. Of course, the answer came pretty fast: for the same reason that they'd put glitter and gold on their normal floor-y carpets.

"We're snatching this on the way out for sure," Kaylee said, grinning at the carpet, and Mal grunted.

"Sure, whatever," he said. "Suppose it'll look real nice in the dining hall. Let's get to working."

Jayne was moving up the other side of the gallery, and had stopped as he saw something that caught his eye too: a display case showing what looked like a long, straight sword in a scabbard. It was a _jian_ - a Chinese straight sword. What caught his eye was how unpretty it was: just a simple metal blade with a rubber-like grip in a scabbard of blue-painted wood. It was polished to a nice shine, but otherwise nothing terribly special about it.

"Hell's this?" Jayne asked. Mal glanced over, frowning as well. Sympathy pains ran through his side as he remembered the sword duel he'd had. Kaylee frowned as well, moving up beside him and looking at the hologram beside the case.

"Says here it belonged to some Earth That Was general called Jingwei," she said. "Ain't got a name or nothin'."

"An electrosword," Jayne said, interested, as he was always interested when it came to weapons. Swords weren't his thing usually, but in his present state, lacking anything meaner than a knife, the blade had a special bit of usefulness in his eyes. "Didn't think they made those anymore. Looks real old, too, probably special somehow. That'll catch a fair bit on the market."

Electroswords were blades that had batteries built into the handles. Turned on, they sent electricity running through the blade. Just tapping someone with a blade like that could knock them off their feet, while penetrating skin could kill them even if they weren't hit in a vital part of the body. They were expensive and rare, and most people just used stun batons instead.

"Jayne," Mal called quietly. The mercenary looked away from the sword. "We'll steal the precious bits later. Smash up the lab first." Jayne grunted and nodded, stepping away from the case, letting Kaylee move up ahead of him and watching their backs.

A moment later, Mal paused next to a door, checked, and nodded. Kaylee moved up beside him and began working on it, and this time had the panel popped off in a matter of seconds. She began to upload the codes.

Jayne suddenly turned, dropping into a crouch, knife half-drawn out of its sheath. For an instant, Mal thought there was a threat, and drew his own blade, but Jayne kept his weapon partially sheathed, and instead stood stock still. His upper lip seemed to be working, and his nostrils flared a few times with quick sniffs of the air.

"Something the matter?" Mal asked, and Jayne frowned. The captain knew that those eyes of his would be darting about, searching their surroundings.

Mal knew to trust Jayne's instincts, as much if not more than he trusted River's. The girl was a psychic, but Jayne was _experienced_; he was both a hunter and a tracker, and if something was off, the mercenary would know.

"Heard ship engines," he whispered. "Through the skylight."

"Don't mean much. Dumont runs a shipping business," Mal said, as he heard the door chime.

"Weren't a big transport," Jayne whispered back. "Small ship. Shuttle maybe. Too close to the house for a freighter." He frowned again. "Gone now. Or maybe settled down."

"Right," Mal said, nodding. "Best we do this quick and get the job done fast."

Ignoring the redundancy of that last sentence, they started into the next room, which turned out to be a stairwell that ran down to a single landing. Mal paused at the landing, and saw another door at the foot of a second set of stairs. The walls, which had before been richly-paneled wood, were still wooden and clean, but they weren't the polished mound of shiny expensiveness that had been the gallery above. Guests clearly weren't meant to come down here.

At the door below, Kaylee again removed the panel and began to put in the codes. As she did so, mal heard a buzzing in his ears.

_" . . . al . . ."_

"'Nara?" Mal whispered. Her voice was fuzzy and indistinct. Most likely interference, probably from their surroundings. "Inara, is that you?"

_" . . . al . . . Ma . . isten. Can you he . . . ."_

"'Nara, I can barely hear you," he replied, as loud as he dared. behind him, Jayne was peering up the stairs, still tense and worried.

_" . . . ive is he . . . ."_

"'Nara, I can't hear you," Mal said. "Coming in bad." he glanced up. "Jayne, you hearing this?"

"Ain't clear either," Jayne replied, and behind them, the door chimed open. Mal hesitated, tapping the radio piece in his ear, and then there was a sudden, sharp squealing in his ear. He jerked, hissing, and then the radio went dead.

"Jamming," Jayne grunted, quietly pulling the earpiece out, while Kaylee snatched her radio from her ear like it was on fire.

"Well, that's a kick in the nether parts as far as this job goes," Mal hissed. He looked back up the stairs, considering what Inara's call had meant. Had she been trying to give him an update? Or was she telling them that they had been seen and an army of Dumont's goons was about to come charging down those stairs? With the jamming, there was no way he'd be able to call her and confirm.

And where the hell _was_ that jamming coming from? Why was it on now? And what had Inara been trying to tell him?

Mal glanced to Jayne, and the mercenary looked back. After a second, Jayne nodded, expression grim. That ship he'd heard then and the jamming now were too close together, and coincidence wasn't helpful.

Neither he nor Jayne needed to say anything, and Mal looked away, considering what this complication meant. Jamming meant that it wasn't Dumont's people, which meant someone else was getting involved. It couldn't be Alliance - they wouldn't bother with something like jamming if it was a raid - which meant it was someone else. Someone obviously not terribly legitimate.

And Womack's worry about carrying out this job suddenly took on a terribly new light.

But could they scrub the job and run? Was that even an option with the jamming as it was? They couldn't call Wash to extract them, and they didn't even know if this sudden shift was directed at the labs.

"Yeah, right," Mal hissed under his breath. The only reason anyone would be raiding Dumont's estate would be either for the wetware or the artifacts – which involved Mal and his crew either way.

"Cap'n?" Kaylee asked, still waiting for orders, to which Mal responded by pointing toward the doors, and being all decisive-like.

"Do the job," he said. "Smash and burn, don't waste time. Move."

* * *

The return trip had been quick and uneventful, and the shuttle had settled into the dock with minimal fuss. Wash hurried up the crew corridor toward the bridge, and saw Zoe waiting for him in the pilot's chair. She was dressed for trouble, wearing a pair of pistols on webbing around her shoulders, and her lever-action at her side, but something was missing from the usual Zoe-kicking-ass ensemble.

"Hon, you seen my vest anywhere?" she asked, and he blinked. Oh.

"No, I haven't," he replied, as she moved out of the pilot's chair and he settled in. He glanced at the empty copilot's chair while plopping down on the sheepskin padding. "Guess River's still hiding."

"She hasn't come out," Zoe replied. "The armor's not in the case I keep it in."

"Maybe you left it in the laundry," Wash said lightly, and she gave him an annoyed glare, and then frowned.

"I'll be back," she said, quietly. That made Wash frown, as that last sentence had rang of quiet suspicion. Before Wash could say anything, she stalked out of the bridge, passing by Book as he came up the crew corridor.

"How is the caper going?" Book asked, and Wash shrugged.

"No radio messages yet, and the flight in went without a hitch," he replied, but his eyes stayed focused on the radar display. One of the blips on it was tagged, and it was slowly circling around the outer edges of the city's flight zone.

"Womack is keeping his distance," Book observed, leaning over the pilot.

"He'll jump straight up our collective _pi gus_ if we take off," Wash said, leaning back. His fingers hovered near a large red button set on the side of the console, the same one he'd rigged up way back when the ship had lost power before. It was recycled now into a transmitter for the insurance Zoe had planted on Womack's boat.

There were a few moments of silence as they stood there, and it started to get a bit awkward.

"Hey, you seen my copilot?" he asked suddenly, and Book shook his head.

"She was in her room the last I saw her, but I haven't seen River since then," he replied.

"Could you do me a favor and find her?" Wash asked. "If I need to do a dynamic rescue, I'll need her with me. If she's hiding in the ducts, maybe chocolate can lure her out."

"I'll take a look around," Book said, nodding. "But if she doesn't want to be found, she won't be."

Wash muttered something under his breath about that, and Book took his leave, heading back down the crew corridor. He considered Wash's request and frowned. While the pilot liked River, he didn't seem to really understand that if she wasn't in the mood to come out in this tense of a situation, then she wasn't likely to be of any use even if he did pry her out of her hiding place.

Nonetheless, he spent a few minutes wandering around the ship, calling River's name, and quickly determined she wasn't hiding in the mess. It wasn't until he went downstairs to the cargo bay that he realized something was seriously amiss.

Zoë was moving up the stairs, face set in grim seriousness, which made her already-battle ready outfit all the more dangerous-looking.

"Something the matter?" Book asked, and Zoë's frown grew.

"One of the knives is missing," she said. "We ordered eight, the entry team took four, but there's only three still in the crate."

That sent a chill through Book. Only one person could have had that extra knife, and they both knew that River and a blade were a dangerous combination.

"Any other equipment missing?" Book asked, and she nodded.

"One of the night-vision goggles, a set of infiltration fatigues like what Mal and the others had, climbing gear."

Book closed his eyes and whispered a silent, grave prayer.

"We need to find her," he said, and she nodded.

"I'll tell Wash," she said. "Do you have any idea where she went?"

"Maybe," Book said. "Let me look around. I have a suspicion."

She hurried up the stairs past him. A few moments later he was back down in his bunk, digging up both the invitation datapad and the data needle. Book started running down the names, and then he stopped. A sudden, horrified curse escaped his lips as he saw two names that matched up.

He now understood exactly who River was after.

* * *

After that _**thunderclap of violence**_, everything seemed to clear out. The _waters_ became still and the _sailing _became quick and safe.

Hypothesis: _violence is therapeutic_. That would explain why Captain Hammer found punching faces hilarious.

Previous postulation and analysis of transport options had revealed one hundred and thirty-five possible methods of transport, ranging from theft of the secondary shuttle to stowing away on a bulk ore hauler to redirecting a public transport bus to her destination. There was a glut of options that would allow transport both to and from, with varying degrees of speed, ease, and detectability.

But most of those options were either too expensive or too unreliable.

So, she called a cab.

"Where to?" asked the cabbie – _an oily gray annoyance_ stretched over _**a happy yellow-pink **_core of a person. His flying cab smelled like _unhappy _mixed with long hours, **sprinkled with urgency.**

She gave him the location, and he glanced back. A frown arced over his face.

"Legal curfew is for kids is-" he began.

A wad of bills made his words **truncated**.

"Yes ma'am," he said, pocketing the money, and the _gray_ melted away. The cab _became a cutting sword_, whipping about and shooting off into the night sky.

* * *

Simon stood amidst the swirling collection of expensive suits and even more expensive dresses, and despite his best efforts to maintain a vigilant watch on the guards, he found himself flashing back to happier times. He wasn't much of a dancer and never had been one for functions and parties – even as often as he'd attended them – but seeing so many women in beautiful, expensive dresses reminded him of the few he'd been forced to attend, and they kept reminding him of the dance recitals River had enjoyed.

That put him in a nostalgic but somewhat unpleasant mood, and he kept his distance from everyone at the party, skirting the edges of the expansive dance floor while watching Dumont's guards. He tried to avoid thinking about River as she had been, like Kaylee had counseled.

It was thus that Simon came across a well-dressed man with a closely-clipped salt-and-pepper beard sitting in a chair in a quiet corner of the party, a slightly-less well-dressed man standing beside him with the unconscious air of a bodyguard/manservant about him. The doctor simply walked past the man at first, sparing him a polite nod and a "good evening" as he passed. The doctor continued along, pausing to sweep the party and noting that the guards had begun to change – while the number of men remained the same, they seemed to be changing shifts, new guards filtering in while the others moved away.

Simon was still standing there, watching what was happening, when a voice spoke up beside him.

"I see you aren't too interested in the party either." The doctor turned to see the bearded man beside him, holding a delicate champagne glass in hand. His manservant stood behind him, holding a second one. "Drink?"

"Certainly," Simon replied, surprised but covering it quickly. The manservant handed the glass over, and he took it with a nod of thanks and a raise of the glass in appreciative salute.

"I couldn't help but notice that you came in accompanied, but you are walking about alone," the bearded man said. "Thus I figured you were here for similar reasons."

"Those being?" Simon asked, suddenly on guard. The bearded man shrugged.

"Because."

Simon slowly nodded at the simple reason. "Because," he had learned, was a perfectly good reason to do most things for the upper crust of the Alliance.

"I admit, I'm not here for the auction, either," the doctor said, shrugging himself.

"Ah, you'll have to forgive me," the bearded man said, holding up a hand. "I don't spend a lot of time in aristocratic circles, so I've forgotten to introduce myself." Simon raised his hand to shake the offered arm, and did his damnedest to keep the smile on his face at the next sentence.

"Colonel Rishard Dannet. Alliance Special Projects."

Dannet peered back, his expression momentarily unreadable, and Simon did his best to blank his features, remembering his infiltration of the Academy. An Alliance officer, who specialized in covert operations, here? In his face, speaking to him, shaking his hand?

Fear fluttered up inside of the young doctor, and he fought it down.

"Ah, I see. I didn't peg you for the military type," Simon replied. "Nathaniel Doerner."

"So we're both prisoners of social convention," Dannet remarked, nodding. "I plan to leave as soon as it is best polite. Which will be soon. I don't plan to waste my retirement here."

"Retirement?" Simon asked, picking up on that. "I would have figured a man of your apparent age would have been ideally in a command position in the military by now."

"Special Projects," Dannet replied, placing emphasis on the first word. "Not the most conventional business, I assure you."

The doctor considered what Dannet might have been doing as part of the Alliance's covert research and development group, and a terrifying, yet giddying, thought hit him: could he have knowledge of the Academy? Something that could help him and River undo the damage she'd suffered?

It was a long shot, but . . . .

"I've got no doubt that whatever you are - pardon, were involved in, you can't exactly talk about it," Simon said, sparing a glance to check on Dumont's guards. They were still in place, though the shifts were changing at a staggered rate.

"Only if I wanted to spend the rest of my life on a penal moon," Dannet replied, tone sour. "Not that I would like to speak on the matter much."

"I'm sure the Alliance had you doing all manner of dirty work," Simon said, and then paused. "Unless my perceptions are wrong. I suppose reality isn't like it is on the vids."

"No, it's not quite," Dannet said, voice distant. "Not like that Miranda business."

The way he spoke those words caught Simon's ear, and he glanced at the man beside him. Dannet's face was pinched, his brow furrowed, and his eyes were locked somewhere a thousand kilometers distant. He'd seen the look during his time in the hospital, from Unification War veterans who were suffering prolonged injuries, which usually came with some nasty emotional baggage.

"I'm not entirely certain there can be another scandal on the scale of Miranda," Simon mused, to which Dannet scoffed.

"Trust me, son," the officer said, "If you'd seen what I've seen . . ." Dannet frowned. "It was retirement or suicide. I had to pick one."

Simon did his best to hide his frown. This conversation was taking a very strange turn.

"Because of what you were working on," he asked, and Dannet nodded.

"Yes," the colonel said, and then paused. "I must apologize. I cannot speak any more on this matter." He glanced toward the party, and his distant look became much more present, and much harder. "And I've spent enough time among fools and fops. Present company excluded, of course."

With that, he turned to face Simon and gave a short but polite bow that the doctor recognized as a formal goodbye. Simon mimicked it, and then Dannet turned on his heel toward his manservant, and they started across the room to the exit.

_Well,_ the doctor thought, _that was . . . strange._

He glanced back across the room, checking the locations and disposition of Dumont's guards. As he scanned the room, Simon spotted Inara, moving unobtrusively around the room, smiling and chatting as she walked. That made him frown, for in the last year he'd come to understand some of Inara's subtle body language. They way she moved, speaking and smiling, seemed so very genuine, but the fact that she wasn't stopping to talk to anyone, and kept moving in his general direction, set off warning bells in his head.

Simon looked away from her even as he walked towards her, feigning a casual, distracted wander, and that was when his eyes settled on a man on the far side of the chamber, speaking quietly with another guest.

He froze in place, staring, and then he felt a presence close by.

"Inara," he breathed, knowing it was her.

"I know."

"Is that-"

"It is," she said, her tight words betraying her nervousness.

"This is very bad," he breathed. "Why is he here?"

"I didn't find out when I spoke with him," she said. "I tried to warn Mal, but something's wrong with the radio."

_"Serenity?"_

"I've radioed Wash, and I gave him the short version."

"Right," Simon said, nodding. "I've got a very bad feeling about this."

It was then that the man across the room turned, and his eyes met Simon's.

Everything was still and silent at that moment, and the doctor felt his heart skip a few beats.

Across the room, _the_ Operative, the man who had hunted his sister and murdered dozens of their friends and associates, nodded toward him, and offered a slight, knowing smile.

He _recognized_ Simon.

Then he disappeared among the guests, and a deep, painful chill settled into the doctor's gut.

"We need to finish this job quickly and get out of here," he whispered, and she nodded.

"No argument there."

* * *

Security outside the lab itself was almost insultingly limited. Either Dumont's men were stretched too thin, or he was just arrogant enough to think that the lab was safe with only a single guard and a lone scanner mounted above the doorframe.

Then again, that lone guard, patrolling the hallway outside the door, and the scanner sweeping the same corridor, were enough to stymie Mal's team. The trio lurked down the hallway, watching the bored guard as he moved lazily across the corridor in a general patrol pattern, a shotgun on his back. He frequently stopped to check his watch or yawn.

At least it wasn't as bad as he'd expected, Mal realized. The scanner was an omni-directional model, but it probably reacted to a transmitter the guard carried, likely sewn into his uniform. Kaylee confirmed his suspicions a moment later after finishing fiddling with her datapad and a portable sensor.

The man paused close to the spot where they were hiding. Mal nodded to Jayne, and as the guard turned to continue his back-and-forth loop, the mercenary rolled around the corner, and his immense arms came down on either side of the guard's neck. They tightened hard around his throat, squeezing the air out in a surprised gasp, and Jayne calmly hauled the man back away from the scanner's radius. Once back around the corner, he held the kicking guard fully a few inches off the floor, and let him black out.

Two minutes, some scanning, and a bit of knife work later, the guard was dumped in a storage closet and Kaylee had the transmitter in hand, fabric still hanging from it. She moved up toward the scanner, which didn't even react to her presence. She'd assured Mal that that particular type of scanner and transmitter pair reacted to roughly humanlike weight and height. Anything that exceeded normal human size limitations would trigger it, to keep someone from taking a hostage and using them to bypass the scanner.

A couple of minutes later, the door was unlocked, and the scanner was disabled as gently as if Kaylee had just asked it to settle down, and Mal took the lead again into the heart of the lab where Dumont grew his illegal guts. Kaylee left another of their unobtrusive cameras at the doorway, and then they slipped inside.

The corridor beyond had an odd smell, and Mal found himself stepping into a darkened airlock. The doors slid shut once they were all inside, and there was a faint hissing of working air filters. He expected loud alarms and rumbling air pumps, but instead the inner door opened with another quiet hiss, and they were inside the lab.

A long corridor stretched from the doorway beyond, about fifty meters long. The hallway was lit with running lights along the floorboards. Clean white walls and that antiseptic clean-death-solemn smell of a hospital hung in the air. They silently padded up along the corridor, passing a few doors as they did so. Most of them were locked, and from appearances, they were offices or storage rooms. Mal made a note that they would need to bypass those doors sooner or later to take out the computers inside. As it stood, he wanted to secure the rest of this long corridor.

"Where is everyone?" Jayne breathed, voice low and barely audible. "No scientists or doctors or nothin'."

Mal shushed him with a glance. They were probably all out, with the party going on. Didn't want odd comings and goings to attract undue attention.

The end of the hallway had four sets of doors, marked as "Specimen Storage and Incubation" with appropriate numbers. At the very end of the corridor was a doorway that was marked "Surgery/Packaging."

Mal opened the door to one of the specimen rooms, and froze as the lights automatically came on.

_"Wu de mah,"_ he breathed.

* * *

The cab departed, the cabbie accepting an extra wad of cash to circle this particular mountain-city and wait for her to call back. Money had a way of _talking_ to otherwise locked and sealed books.

She liked having it.

It was strange. Years ago, money had not been an object. Then again, years ago money had already held little meaning anyway. Books and information and music had been_ her currency_, up until the point that it had been taken away.

She jerked, and ducked into a darkened side street in the tight confines of the tightly-packed city. She beat the memory back before it could rise up and _**claw**_ her with its _**icy steel talons**_, and she emerged a few moments later, steadying herself.

Focus on the mission.

Time drifted past, _curling_ around her as she moved through the city, staying out of sight as best she could, until . . . .

She paused outside the laser fence, surrounding the cliffside mansion, and considered her options. It was a complex security network of dozens of scanners, beams, and sniffers, across two acres of open greenery and manicured gardens. A heist at this location would require extensive planning by a cadre of people with extensive knowledge of the security systems and skill at stealth and entry.

Or, it would require a lone reader.

Her hairs tingled with the energy of the scanners and sensors maneuvering across the grounds, an intricate _dance_ of signals and pulses that beat like clockwork, an interlocking weave of wire and light and crystalline computers that came together with a metallic purpose.

She paused, and considered making up more metaphors, but there was a job to do.

The security was good. It took her twenty minutes to bypass it, using only her body and her awareness to _pour_ and _seep_ between the pulses of energy that made up the network of interlocking beams and waves. Her hair was tied back, tight to her neck and under a cap, and twice she came within inches of a laser beam or a passing sensor cone.

It wasn't a cat-like dance, nor were the movements serpentine. It was a swift, herky-jerky step-waltz over and around, following an evolving series of steps across the grounds that she made up and changes as each sensor node and laser beam chimed in with its own piece of chorus_: tingling, airy __**columns **__**of light**__ for the string__ section_, the **deep, **_**thrumming ground sensors**_** for the bass and drums**, _with the woodwinds_ being the pulsing, constant motion detectors.

The metaphor passed when her hands touched rich wood and stone walls of the house, and a moment later, she negotiated with the locks. They _let her pass_ without fuss, and then she was within, and the _dance_ began again.

It ended soon enough, and she stood alone in the great mansion, and considered her next steps.

She could detect the tingle – _familiar__**, solid, stony**__, but __tainted_ – on the way, and she knew she didn't have much time. As postulated, contact and conversation had left the books _stormy _and _confused_, _pages rustling and the inky runny_.

He would be here soon. Best prepare.

* * *

"Wash, we have a-"

"- major problem here," the pilot said, hands flying over the switches on his console. Zoë frowned as she hurried up beside him, glanced at the displays, and then moved to the copilot's chair.

"Do you want to go first?" he asked, as she strapped herself in, knowing from practice when Wash was prepping for a swift takeoff.

"Oh, no, dear," she replied. "Your bad news first."

"Inara's reporting that Mal's not coming back on his radio. Sounds like jamming. And she says she's spotted the Operative at the party."

That froze Zoe in place for just a heartbeat, before she resumed taking her spot at the copilot's chair. She whispered a curse under her breath.

"Does she know what he's doing there?" she asked, to which Wash shrugged.

"She was being terse. I think she was worried someone was listening in. Far as I could tell, he isn't on our side, but he isn't causing us trouble, either."

Which as far as Zoe was concerned, meant Inara hadn't figured out how the Operative was going to hurt them yet.

Zoe was right up there with Mal in her personal opinion of the Operative: she was pleased enough by the fact that he'd patched up their hurt, but that didn't change the fact that he'd killed friends of hers, and she wasn't going to be friendly with someone just because he'd eased off of the notion of killing her and her family. The man was dangerous, and all the more now that he wasn't entirely on the same side as the Alliance.

Obrin had taught her that just because you weren't friends with the Alliance, you weren't automatically friends with _Serenity_. Still, that didn't mean she was going to shoot the man on sight, but the news he was involved set all her alarm bells ringing.

She knew Wash wasn't too pleased by the notion either, but like his wife, he didn't seem to take it as personally as Mal had. Instead, he prepped _Serenity_ for take-off, knowing that the news was likely to throw sand in their compression coil.

"Okay, that's bad enough," she finally said as the Firefly thrummed with gathering power. "Ready for mine?"

"It's not a unisex crisis without equal input from both husband and wife," he replied.

"River's gone."

Wash fumbled over his switches for a second, and then swiveled to face her, blinking.

"She left," Zoe said. "Checked the cargo, found some of the extra infiltration gear and one of our knives missing."

Wash spun around and started hitting some more keys on his console, and then frowned. He cursed quietly.

"Got a bypassed opening on the topside airlock," he said. "Less than an hour ago." He looked back up at Zoe, and their eyes met. An entire library's worth of unspoken understanding passed between them at that moment.

"Do you believe in coincidence?" he finally asked, and Zoe shook her head.

"Not where River is concerned."

He nodded. If she had taken off, it meant something bad was about to happen, and Mal could very well need them. River doing something loopy like this and there being jamming in the air meant something had gone wrong.

Wash spun and started to fire the engines up all the way, and Zoe worked to help him at her station.

"Womack is going to be pissed," she said, as casually as if she were ordering tea.

"Oh, no," Wash gasped, "someone is _angry_ with us, whatever shall we _do_."

That brought a quick, tight smile to her lips, and _Serenity_ shuddered as her engines kicked into gear. They would be airborne in a few moments. She reached across and flicked the intercom.

"Preacher, we're preparing to lift," she called. "Get ready." She closed the comm, knowing he would have heard her, and then a buzzing came from Wash's station.

"Shiny," he said, "our psychopath pseudo-employer is giving us a call."

"You gonna pick up?" Zoe asked, her tone making it clear she didn't expect him to.

"Womack stopped being my employer the moment we fired up our thrusters," he replied, and the Firefly began to lift off, the docks peeling away below the bridge windows. "And I screen my calls."

A few seconds later, a sleek aircraft - Womack's vessel - shot past the front of the bridge. It then spun around and came back toward the lifting Firefly, maneuvering directly into their path.

The display began to beep a moment later, but this time it was a much different tone: the deep, warning hiss of an imminent radar lock. From inside the cockpit of his craft, Womack was visible, and he waved, giving a jaunty smile, and then gestured for the Firefly to go back down to its landing pad.

"I really," Wash breathed, "wish we'd kept that cannon."

He jammed the thrusters, and they slammed forward, launching _Serenity_ straight at Womack's ship.

* * *

The room stretched to his right, long and narrow, about five meters across and forty or so long. In the chill white light of the room, Mal found himself staring at a neat line of twenty beds, and on each bed was a naked human body, covered by a white sheet up to the shoulders.

Mal felt a sudden chill as he remembered the corpses at Miranda, but as he stepped into the room, he saw each body - an even mixture of men and women - was hooked up to health monitors that were mounted on the wall at the head of each bed. They were all breathing, from what he could tell, but they were all also unconscious.

"The hell . . . ." Jayne muttered, and Mal glanced back at him, only to see the mercenary had only spared a glimpse before covering the door.

Mal moved along the length of the bodies, a spike that was forged out of a mixture of revulsion, horror, and quiet rage poking into his gut, while that cold and rational piece of his mind whirled and assessed. He stopped next to a dark-skinned man, and stepped up beside him. A mark was on his upper arm: a tattoo of three tight, curving slash marks.

Every body had the same tattoo, and he recognized it.

"Slaves," Mal breathed, and he looked back up at Kaylee, who was staring at the bodies with a look he remembered straight from Miranda.

It all came faster than Jayne in brothel. Mal understood.

"Dumont runs slaves," he whispered. "Brings 'em in here. Probably cuts . . . ." Mal paused, glancing at the bodies - or specifically, their heads. Surgical scars, maybe a month old at most, adorned every head.

"Cuts their brains to leave 'em brain-dead, and then he puts them on life support," he continued. "Then he cuts 'em open, plants the gene-crop he's cooked up in the labs inside, lets it incubate, and then he harvests it."

The growing horror on Kaylee's face and the grim set to Jayne's jaw told him they understood just how bad it was. With four specimen rooms like this, that meant that Dumont had cut the minds out of close to a hundred slaves and was using them to grow fresh gene-tech for shipping. More likely than not, they wouldn't survive the process, meaning Dumont would need to ship in a steady supply of slaves to serve as incubators.

_"Hun dan,"_ Mal breathed. This was what Womack wanted dealt with. If even a hint of this was backtracked to him, he'd end up in prison for life, at best.

"Cap'n," Jayne muttered. "I'd bet platinum against piss that this auction they got goin' on ain't sellin' bits of old junk." Mal nodded.

"Probable," he said. "Like as much, that's the reason they don't want folk ain't 'registered' to participate. They're using it as a front to auction off these guts."

They checked the other three "specimen" rooms, and found the same ugly truth: lines of twenty to thirty unconscious, branded, brain-dead people. If they were anything like the gene-tech that Tracy had been smuggling, they were looking at, bare minimum, several millions credits' worth of guts in these four rooms.

The "surgery" room wasn't anything he didn't expect. It was a sterile and clean surgical ward like he'd seen on Ariel, but with perhaps a dozen surgical beds lined up side by side. The far end of the room contained lines of cryo boxes, just like the one Simon used to smuggle River, along with smaller boxes.

"Either cut 'em open and take to good bits out," Mal said, voice dripping with venom, "or just stuff the whole body in one of those boxes and ship it wholesale."

"We still gonna . . . ." Kaylee said, trailing off. Mal glanced back to her, to see her settling herself. "We still gonna burn it all?"

Mal paused, eyes reading Kaylee's expression. She was still shocked and horrified at the scale of the cruelty going on down here, but she'd seen worse, and some steel had been growing in her spine since she'd joined his crew years back. On the one hand, it pained Mal to see his little Kaylee hardening like that, but on the other hand, it was necessary that she toughen, if even a bit, to survive.

And he'd seen her get tough and determined just a few weeks back, when she'd fought tooth and nail to save Simon.

"Yeah, we're shuttin' this down," Mal said, words grim. "These folks are already dead, we're just going to give 'em what dignity we can."

She nodded, and was about to respond when Jayne suddenly jerked his head toward the surgical ward's door, and moved across the room. He paused at the door, listening intently. He began to slowly draw his knife, peering out the door, utterly still.

"Jayne?" Mal breathed, to which the mercenary raised a hand in a shushing gesture.

"Gunfire," he whispered, low and quiet. Mal froze, listening a bit more intently, and thought he heard a distant rumbling sound, the high-pitched reports of charged gunfire. Or that could have been the air recyclers.

Then, the alarms began to sound, rippling peals of noise coming off the walls, and Mal realized they really were gunshots, and that he and his crew were out of time.

* * *

-

* * *

_**Author's Notes: **_Well, that took way too damn long. Lotta issues came up while writing this chapter; school is starting back up, and more importantly, I ended up crashing headlong into _The Dresden Files._ .....Yeah, two weeks of my life went away pretty much then and there.

As for some of the speculation from the last chapter, I will say at least one person is dead on the money, and at least one other is way, waaaaaay off. Like, Stormtrooper-tier off. :P

Until next chapter....

* * *


	45. Chapter Six: Magic Carpet Ride

_**

* * *

**_

Chapter Six: Magic Carpet Ride

_Twenty-five stared up at the figure that had wordlessly slaughtered his men, shaking his head in confusion._

_"What . . who the hell are you?"_

_"You don't recognize me?" the figure asked. The voice made the elderly man flinch._

_"No," he breathed, recognizing the voice. It was . . . ._

* * *

The hovercar barely shuddered as it came to a halt, and between the wine he was drinking and the strains of old Earth-That-Was music drifting through the speakers, Colonel Rishard Dannet didn't realize his transport had come to a halt for a few moments. His looked up in mild surprise as Sym opened the door, and slowly rose.

"Your coat, sir?" the aide/bodyguard asked, the traditional question coming to Dannet's ears as he stepped out into his spotless garage. The colonel nodded and doffed his coat, handing it off to his aide, who quickly and easily folded it and put it over one shoulder.

They moved inside the palatial estate, the music that had been playing in the car chasing them through wall speakers into grand chambers with ebony walls and marble floors. Drones hustled about, cleaning and ordering per their standard programming, the whirrs of their gravity engines barely audible over the light, airy music.

"Shall I prepare a dinner for you, sir?" Sym asked, and Dannet shook his head, frowning as he remembered those men at the parry, particularly the young man with Ms. Serra.

The young Simon Tam.

"I'll prepare something myself," he replied, his words distant. Simon Tam was here. Coincidence? Or something more? He doubted a fugitive like that - especially one so significantly regarded - would show up at an upper-crust party for no reason.

"Very good, sir," Sym replied, and hustled off with the coat in hand, to take care of other housekeeping business. Dannet wandered into the kitchen, stepping over spotless tiles of polished metal and stone, and verbally ordered the music to quiet down. He turned on the lights in his expansive kitchen, and walked across the room to the vast set of plate-glass windows overlooking the glittery chemical clouds of Silverhold kilometers below the mountain.

Simon's seemingly innocent questions were bothering him, bringing back memories he didn't want to remember. They were fresh, so very fresh, and not for the first time, he wished he'd taken the suggested amnesiac therapy. It would have blotted out the screams, along with the cries and the blood and the madness he had dealt with every day and night.

Especially hers. Maybe it was just the shock and the familiarity of his face, but he remembered her in sudden and agonizing clarity.

In away, he realized, he was glad he had refused amnesiac therapy. If he had, he wouldn't be able to remember the children in the first place, and he knew that to discard the memory of their suffering would insult them worse than anything else he'd done.

_I am guilty, _he thought, sighing, and moved toward his refrigerator to pick out a bottle of wine. _Who was it that said it? Oppenheimer? "We are all now sons of bitches." _

He needed a drink, to drown those memories before they drove him deeper into depression, at least for now.

His fingers hovered over the refrigerator door, and he closed his eyes. That depression had been why he'd left the project, why he'd signed a thousand non-disclosure agreements and accepted early, wealthy retirement in this out-of-the-way corner of the 'Verse.

Those children.

He opened the door.

There was an explosion of flesh and motion, and there was a dark, polished hardness cutting through the air. Something hit him as it erupted from the refrigerator. He was slammed backward, and a hand wrapped around his shirt and wrenched him toward the shining tiles at his feet.

Something cold and hard and sharp pressed against his neck, and he could feel a chill from the cloth around the attacker's slender fingers, and an equal cold from long, brown-black hair that draped down over his face. The figure was clad in dark gray cloth that covered her neck to toe, nondescript clothes and boots and gloves that blended in with the shadows easily.

A pair of fierce brown eyes stared down at him, a dozen emotions flash-frozen in that gaze, boring down into his soul.

He knew those eyes, except before they had been dewy, filled with tears and ringed in red, part of the screaming face of an innocent child. Now that was set in stone, a blank visage of cold, mechanical wrath, and deep down in that gaze, he caught a flicker of something that seemed far too alien for that face and that voice and that name.

Wrath.

She stared at him, the dull black ceramic knife digging into the flesh of his throat, and Rishard Dannet remembered her name.

She was here. She'd come for him, finally.

"River Tam," he breathed.

* * *

"Kaylee, what do you see?" Mal hurried over to her, and she started fiddling with her datapad. He saw her fingers shake for a moment, but as he got close they seemed to settle down.

"Uh. Ah. Can't see much. Cameras aren't showing anything. Just some guys moving around out there."

"That ain't nothin'," he muttered. Mal leaned over her shoulder and peered at the display. On it were several feeds from the cameras Kaylee had placed on their way down to the labs, and he spotted several figures moving in and out of the cameras' lines of sight, through the various galleries. He counted at last a dozen of them, and as they moved, there were flashes of light and the occasional burst of laser fire. Dumont's security teams were appearing here and there on the cameras, trading fire with the invaders.

"Oh, _ni ta ma de_," Mal muttered. There was no questioning where they were headed.

"Okay, we ain't got much time," Mal said, mind racing. These attackers, whoever they were, looked to be on the way to the labs, and he doubted they'd give him and his any more consideration than they'd give Dumont's people. They might not kill them, but Mal wasn't willing to rely on the milk of human kindness.

They lacked the firepower to handle that many foes. Mal wasn't a slouch with a knife, and Jayne could probably cut expressive artwork with the two blades he carried, but Kaylee _wasn't_. They both had to look after her in a fight. And despite what the vids liked to portray, a knife was a bad idea in a gunfight, even if one could get the drop on one's opponents.

It was then that a plan hit him. It was an insane one, right on a par with Jayne's idea to set himself on fire, or Book's idea to run to an Alliance cruiser for medical help. Or that insane little plot to pull a hundred Reaver ships right onto the Alliance.

But as best he could tell, it was the only way out of this, at least with what limited resources he had. That didn't make it any less crazy.

Mal checked the video feed on Kaylee's datapad, and bit back another curse. The intruders were breaching the door leading down to the level with the labs. They had minutes at best.

"Come on, ain't got time," Mal said, hurrying out of the surgery room.

"Got a plan?" Jayne asked. He did, and as they moved into the hallway outside, he laid it before them.

Jayne paused, stuck somewhere between amazement, confusion, and a bit of juvenile interest. Kaylee, on the other hand, just stared.

"Cap'n?" she asked, disbelief spreading over her features. Mal jabbed a finger at his mercenary.

"Jayne goes first," he ordered.

* * *

Simon caught movement from the guards, who were now heading away from their posts. Many of them were pausing to check the shoulder holsters beneath their vests, and others were talking into microphones in the cuffs of their sleeves or the lapels of their uniforms.

"Something is going on," the doctor said to Inara, and she nodded. They were on the far side of the mansion from the galleries where Mal had been infiltrating. If there was a disturbance going on over there, they wouldn't hear anything.

"I'll see if I can listen in, maybe get one of them to tell me what's happening," Inara said, and then she was gone, as if she hadn't been there, which left Simon a little bewildered. Maybe River had been giving her lessons on that particular trick.

With nothing else to do, the doctor kept watching guards while skirting the edge of the party. The sudden shift in their situation left the still light violins and flutes of the band feeling out of place and even banal, and the continued laughter of the guests and their polite nothing-talk began to grate on his nerves.

So, Simon did his best to keep an eye on the guards, trying the unobtrusive radio in his ear, and finally, nearly leapt out of his skin when a cultured, smooth voice suddenly slid in beside him.

"Doctor Tam."

He did his best to recover, and slowly turned, knowing the voice from the recordings he'd heard of his conversations with Mal.

The Operative stood beside him, peering out at the crowd.

"I'll admit, it was surprise to see you here," Simon managed.

"The feeling is mutual, I assure you," the Operative replied. "Though Ms. Serra was not particularly forthcoming on your purpose here. Forgive me, but I cannot fathom a legitimate reason for you to be here."

"Rest assured, I'm not in any hurry to explain myself to you," Simon replied. He considered moving away, but held hi position, engaging in a not-staring stare-down. "Perhaps I just wanted to get a taste of what it was like back home."

"Perhaps, indeed, though I'd doubt you'd be in a rush to return to any societal conditions that would send your sister to Cerberus."

"To what?" Simon said, breaking the not-stare-down by glancing at the man beside him. The operative smiled, peering back beneath his sunglasses, the same model of glasses the doctor was wearing.

"You should look into that, after-" he raised a hand, waving it around to indicate the party. "This. Of course, you should warn Captain Reynolds that . . . ."

He turned away, and Simon could see the sword in its scabbard at his hip.

"The situation is more complicated than you realize," he continued, moving past Simon. The doctor frowned. Mal had once described the Operative as a man who loved to be dramatic, and he seemed to be putting on airs right now.

"Yes, it tends to be that way, in my observation," he replied, and that made the Operative pause. He turned, glancing back toward Simon, and a slight, skin-crawling smile came to his face.

"I think I understand, now," he said.

"Understand what?" Simon asked, trying to keep from being tossed off-balance by this man.

"You and Captain Reynolds are more similar than you realize," the Operative said. "Perhaps that is why he fought for you and your sister." That made Simon's eyes narrow, anger fuming up inside of him.

"I don't think it is physically possible for you to understand the Captain, or me, or my sister," he replied. The Operative nodded, a gesture of concession.

"Fair enough," he admitted. "And maybe I overstepped my bounds. Nonetheless, I would advise you, and Captain Reynolds, to depart this place. It is . . . unsafe."

"Can you possibly be any more melodramatic?" Simon interjected, and that brought the Operative to a dead halt. He smiled again and inclined his head toward the doctor, before moving away without another word.

And it was then that Simon finally realized that the atmosphere in the room was shifting. The guards were moving about, talking and checking their weapons, and the guests had finally started to notice.

"Bad news," whispered Inara, who slid into place beside him like a ghost, again.

"The Captain's been made," Simon concluded, feeling a lump in his throat.

"I'm not sure, but I did overhear the guards talking about gunfire in the lower levels," she said. "In the museum galleries.'

"We need to call Wash," Simon said, and she nodded, brushing a hand through her hair even as the music abruptly died and a security officer hurried onto the stage where the orchestra was playing.

"That can't be good," he breathed. The officer raised his hands to speak, and the music began to die down.

Then there was an explosion, followed by a stream of gunfire, and what looked like a security drone shot past one of the upper floor windows. There was a spray of bullets that tore through the window, sending glass flying everywhere.

At that point, the party wasted no time devolving into a finely-dressed panic.

* * *

A number of facts, and a pair of important assumptions, ran through Hoban Washburne's mind.

Fact one: _Serenity_ was large.

Fact two: Womack's ship was very _not_ large.

Fact three: Womack wasn't stupid. An ass, definitively, but not an idiot.

Assumption one: Womack also wasn't suicidal.

Assumption two: Womack's piloting skills were good enough that he could evade an oncoming object with a couple seconds' warning.

Adding to the list of facts was number four: _Serenity_ was a Firefly. Fireflies were built to take abuse, which a lengthy portion of the runway at Mr. Universe's moon could attest to.

And fact five: Womack's ship was _not_ built to take that kind of abuse.

And then there came an opinion, as the tiny ship dove frantically out of the way of the much, much larger _Serenity_: the expression on Womack's face as a ten-times-heavier vessel came hurtling toward him was _priceless_.

And then they were careening past, free and clear. Wash checked their rear scopes, to see Womack's ship floundering in their wake, but coming around hard as it did so.

"Now the fun begins," the pilot muttered. "We gotta shake him."

"Insurance?" Zoe asked, glancing to the ominous red button.

'Too close to the city," Wash said. "Just gonna have to draw him away before we trigger it."

"And hope he doesn't shoot us down in the process," Zoe said. From Mal or Jayne, that would have been laced with sarcasm and annoyance. With Zoe it was just a grim observation.

Wash _liked_ it when Zoe was grim. It gave him the giddies when she cranked up the stoic warrior-woman vibe.

"He won't." Zoe spared a glance back toward Book, who had hurried into the bridge and was moving up behind them.

"Preacher, you need to be strapped in," she said, but he shook his head.

"Womack won't open fire this close to a city," he continued, ignoring her admonishment. "His kind make big on their freedom to kill as they need, but they have regulations, and blowing up a freighter, criminal or otherwise, will raise too many flags. And this close to a city-"

"Lots of waving, pennanty-sorts," Wash cut in. "Gotcha. But we go too far out, and he blows us to teensy pieces."

The console warbled again as another wave came in, and Book leaned over it.

"I'll stall him," he said, and flicked on the switch.

_"_Serenity_!"_ Womack yelled, and the sheer rage in his voice made Wash flinch.

"Womack," Book replied, as unflappable as a cliff wall. "I apologize for the-"

_"Stop stalling and set your ship down, or I will blast it to scrap and pull the Dust Devil card,"_ Womack snarled. A second later, the bridge sounded with the tones of an impending missile lock. _"And you damn well better not think I'm bluffing, either. Allied Enforcement will not bat an eye if I tell them you're terrorists with a nuke on board."_

"Oh, my," Wash said. "Bombs. Yes, that would be . . . ."

He reached across the console and depressed the big, scary red button.

"_. . . . horrible_."

* * *

Womack snarled as _Serenity_ continued on. He gunned the engines of his already straining gunship, closing on the Firefly as it hurried out of the exclusion zone around the city. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered why _Serenity_ was gunning as fast as it could for an area where he could freely shoot it down with no legal repercussions, but that took a backseat to indignant rage at the fact that they had tried to ram his ship and were flaunting his authority.

He could try to use the cannons – he wouldn't get censured for their use inside the exclusion zone, as opposed to using missiles. But at a dozen kilometers, that would be too far out. He'd rather use a clean missile shot and dump them into the poison atmosphere layer instead.

Of course, that was dependant on whether he wanted to shoot Serenity down, because he suspected he could get better mileage out of bringing them in alive to parade before his superiors as organ smugglers. The cannons could disable their ship . . . .

No, too risky, he decided, and thumbed his missiles on. He targeted the Firefly, and the computers began beeping as they worked a targeting lock.

Their pilot was still jabbering something, but when Womack spared him a glance on the screen, he saw a sudden, wicked smile.

" _. . ._ .horrible._"_

"What?" Womack said, and felt a sudden surge of panic, right before the world became noise and chaos and stomach-heaving violence.

Two weeks ago, Womack's associates had managed to find the bomb – a clever little EMP device - that Zoe had left in the engines, cleverly hidden in a spot where the emissions would have shielded it. After finding it, there had been a round of relived back-clapping, and they had gotten on with their lives, knowing that they'd gotten a leg up on Captain Reynolds.

What they didn't know turned out to hurt them a lot. In this case, they didn't know that there had been _three_ such EMP bombs hidden on their ship.

Zoe had indeed gone outside _Serenity_ in an environment suit – but so had Shepherd Book and Kaylee. While Womack brought all of his minions on board _Serenity_ to try and intimidate Mal, Book and Kaylee had overridden the airlocks, entered the ship, and planted a second device inside the engine itself. Meanwhile, Zoe planted a third device inside the missile pods of the gunship.

And now, Lieutenant Womack was seeing the silvery, poisonous clouds of Silverhold shooting up toward his vessel at unhealthy speeds, in spite of all his most viciously colorful cursing.

* * *

Six of them came into the corridor, and as they passed through the weapons scanners in the hallway, the alarm started ringing, if only for a few seconds. One of them did something with a datapad, and the alarm shut off. They were all clad in dark fatigues, one woman and five men, with multi-purpose goggles and cloth facemasks.

They hurried down the passage, checking each door as they passed.

"These are all locked," one of the men reported, and another grunted.

"Specimen storage this side is unlocked," he replied, and moved inside. He glanced around the room, finding it empty save for the lines of naked, brain-dead, and white-covered bodies on the wheeled beds.

"How much storage do we have on the ship?" another man asked. The group's leader shrugged.

"Enough for thirty, maybe forty. Only have time and manpower for half that at best. We'll start in here. Get these bodies to the gallery. We're not going to mess with the rest." They nodded and started wheeling the first few beds out of the room, detaching the "patients" from their diagnostics and monitors, which just set off another wave of alarms.

A few more of the intruders arrived to help move the carts, and within minutes ten bodies were on the move. They used a cleverly-hidden elevator instead of the stairs to get the bodies up to the gallery level, which thrummed and echoed with gunfire as Dumont's security teams fought the intruders.

The ten bodies were pushed into the gallery, and overhead they could hear the roar of engines in the night sky. The skylight had been blown out with a sonic pulse, leaving glass scattered everywhere, but the invaders had cleared the area around where they'd expected to be picked up.

"Okay, bring down the harnesses, let's get these meatsicles moving," the squad leader called.

The room suddenly erupted with gunfire and gray-liveried guards appeared through a doorway, and the invaders returned fire. Two of the dark-clad intruders fell, but the guards withdrew within seconds, leaving three of their own on the floor. Snarling and cursing, the squad leader charged across the room toward the doorway, barking orders to three of his men to get the bodies secured, while the rest of the team went into the corridor to secure it.

The remaining three men got to work, checking the bodies and grabbing the harnesses as the ship overhead lowered them on long ropes. One of them stepped toward the first body, and frowned, noticing the man's complexion was a bit darker and healthier than the rest of the pale-skinned bodies.

"Hey," one of them said. "This one looks diff-"

Malcolm Reynolds came up off the table with his patented right cross that had laid out both drunken hillbillies and Alliance special forces in equal measure. It crunched into the man's nose and launched him backward against one of the display cases. The Captain leapt up, sweeping the simple cotton sheet off his body and diving atop his foe.

Two beds down, Jayne Cobb sat up, and he didn't dance around the issue with his fists. In either hand was a matte black ceramic knife, which both buried themselves in the chest of the man closest to him. He twisted and tore them out, the blood splattering on the white sheet halfway covering his body, and then he spun. The third man who'd stayed with the bodies was just spinning toward them, raising his weapon, when Jayne sent one knife hurtling end-over-end into the intruders' stomach.

He doubled over, howling in pain, and then Jayne was up, closing in, sheet falling off his naked body as he tackled his foe. They hit the marble floor in a heap of limbs, guns, and curses, and two quick and brutal stabs ended that struggle.

Mal had pinned his foe to the floor and was strangling him with the sheet. The man kept struggling, and in response, Mal smashed his forehead against his opponent. One, then two, then finally three hits left Mal feeling woozy and dazed, but the man he was straddling was out cold.

He stood up, the gallery dancing a jig around him, and leaned against the wall. Jayne rose from the dead body, lifting the man's shotgun as he rose, and glanced toward Mal.

Behind the Captain, Kaylee climbed out of the bed she'd been hiding in, wrapping the sheet around herself as she did so. Like the two men, she wasn't wearing a scrap of clothing.

All part of Mal's brilliant plan.

Mal looked around, and his eyes fell on the flying carpet that Kaylee had been cooing over earlier. He gestured toward it, even as he picked up his opponent's rifle.

"Kaylee, can you get that running?" he asked, and she nodded. Jayne jogged over, pausing beside one of the destroyed display cases and fishing out a piece of the priceless junk Dumont had collected. It looked like a jewelry box, and was extra glittery. Under his other arm he was holding the molotov cocktails they'd hidden under the sheets, as well as the other gun from the man he'd killed. Wedged in there was something else: that electrosword he'd been eyeing earlier.

"Kaylee's gettin' it started," Mal said, sweeping the other side of the room with his rifle. Jayne nodded, running past. A few moments later, they were by the carpet, Kaylee fiddling with the control pad while Mal and Jayne crouched behind upended beds, their former occupants sprawled on the floor. That didn't sit right with Mal, but he was too pragmatic to value folks he didn't know who were all but dead over his own crew.

Despite the gunfire in the distance, they were alone, save for the roar of the ship's engines overhead.

"How'd you know they was gonna take us to the room with the carpet?" Jayne asked. Mal grunted.

"Didn't," he said. Jayne nodded, and glanced back over his shoulder toward Kaylee. Mal smacked him across the back of the head hard when he did so; Kaylee had let the sheet fall off of her so she could work with the datapad. No way was he about to let Jayne take advantage of that.

"You want your eyes to wander, look about you," Mal ordered. He grumbled but did so.

"Lotta broken cases," Jayne piped in. "We could snatch quite a bit 'fore we got outta here."

"No," Mal said. "Need you here watching Kaylee."

"You just said-"

Mal glared at Jayne, giving him that out-the-airlock stare, which promised to be even more terrifying considering Mal didn't have an airlock to toss him out.

Despite himself, though, Mal peeked up at the nearest display case, seeing a set of extra shiny silver jewelry. Inwardly, he debated whether he should grab that to help put another bit of a silver lining on this disaster of naked knifeplay.

Pragmatism won out. Specifically, the greedy breed of pragmatism. Mal snatched the pretty out of the display case and tossed it back onto the flying carpet beside the sword and jewelry box. He settled back in behind the bed, which was just in time for him to catch an earful of gunfire from Jayne's rifle.

One of Dumont's security guards cried out in pain from the balcony overhead, and then two more appeared, opening fire. Bullets slammed into the upended beds and skipped about the tile floor. Jayne and Mal returned fire. Kaylee gasped in surprise but kept working, ducking down low while the world flew apart around her.

* * *

The sounds of gunfire started what could only be described as a stampede. A finely dressed stampede of the crustiest of the Alliance's upper crust, but a stampede nonetheless. A dozen men and nearly as many women drew weapons from their coats or purses, and Inara was amazed so many of them had gotten weapons past the door checker. Then again, everyone present was likely a criminal of one degree or another, even if a few times removed from the actual crime.

At least this room lacked the usual mixture of political rivalries that led to drawn weapons being discharged in a panic. Everyone who had a weapon knew how to use it, somewhat.

"We need to go," Inara hissed, grabbing Simon's arm, and he agreed. They began to move through the crowd of screaming, panicked people, while many of the guards disappeared, running through the restricted access doors, weapons drawn. The remainder moved to the entrance and tried to control the flow of panicked aristocracy.

Simon and Inara almost got through the door, when an arm snaked out and grabbed the Companion above the elbow, whipping her around.

"Miss Serra," Dumont said, glowering down at her. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Excuse me?" she said, sliding into a façade of innocence while her other hand reached down for the slender knife she'd hidden in the folds of her dress.

"I doubt the coincidence of your attending of my party while men are trying to rob me of my livelihood," he snarled. "What is your involvement?"

"I honestly don't know what you're speaking of," she replied, and lowered her voice, feigning innocence. "Please. You're hurting me."

"Do not try your _wiles_ on me!" he hissed. "I haven't spent my lifetime building a business for you to rob me. Who hired you? Reynolds? Or is it Womack? _That_ snake?"

"No," she said, shaking her head, and drew the knife. "Please, I don't-"

Simon appeared from behind Dumont, his arm arching back. It swung across like a bolt of lightning, hammering the taller man directly between the upper cheekbones and the jaw. His head snapped backward and around, and Dumont's grip on her arm slackened as if his hand had been hacked clean off.

Dumont staggered, and Inara fell backward, surprised for a heartbeat.

"You will keep your hands to yourself," Simon barked. "Inara, are you injured?"

"No, I'm fine," she replied, keeping up the pretense of a wronged noblewoman.

"I accept," Dumont said, staggering to his feet. "You twit. This will be pistols at daw-"

Simon punched him again, this time smashing Dumont's nose so hard blood squirted from his nostrils. He dropped to his knees, clutching his face.

"I refuse," Simon replied, curt and blunt. Dumont rose again as Simon turned to lead Inara away, and the older man reached out to grab Simon's shoulder.

The doctor spun and launched another blow, but Dumont caught this one, grabbing Simon's arm by the wrist. The doctor took a step forward, inside Dumont's reach, and then Inara watched in shock as the doctor drove a knee into Dumont's sternum. The man doubled over, and Simon hammered him with another cross to the temple.

This time, when he went down, Dumont hit the floor. Neither of them waited to see if he would stay put, and hurried through the press of fine suits and finer dresses. Within moments they were outside.

"Thank you," she said as they hurried across the landing pad outside the mansion. People were crowding around the aircars, but they were able to slip in amongst them.

"Perhaps I'm more like the Captain than I'll admit," he muttered, and then paused.

"Don't tell him I said that," he added as they clambered onto one of the transport cars and started for the shuttle landing area. They had to get off the island as fast as possible, now that Simon had beaten Dumont senseless.

But, she admitted to herself, the look on Dumont's face when Simon's knuckles smashed his nose had been priceless.

* * *

"They're off our tails!" Wash said, grinning. "I don't believe it, but Mal's crazy plan worked!"

"They usually do, just need some punching to work right," Zoe replied. "We headed in toward the island?"

"Straight for it," Wash said. "Got no idea how we're going to get past security, but I'm thinking we'll just plow right on through."

"Not the wisest choice," Book called from the ops station. "Don't we still have Womack's codes?"

"Oh, right," Wash said a sheepish look spreading across his features. "Didn't think of that." His fingers began playing across the controls. A few seconds later, the communications console began to light up. Zoe flipped the screen on at her station, and recognized the signal.

"Inara?" she asked.

"_Yes,"_ she responded. _"There's been a complication. Gunfire."_

"Told you," Wash said.

"Is Mal okay?"

"_I don't know,"_ Inara said. _"We had to pull out. Dumont got suspicious. Simon had to deal with him."_

"Are you on the way to the meeting spot on Ares Plateau?" Zoe asked.

"_Yes, but we're taking our time so we don't arouse police suspicion," _Inara replied. _"We'll be there in a few hours."_

"Roger that," Zoe replied. "We're already airborne. We'll head for Mal's pickup spot first."

"_Understood,"_ Inara replied. _"Maybe they'll be having better luck."_

"I can only hope._ Serenity_ out."

"What's the call, baby?" Wash asked.

"Go pick up Mal," she replied, and he nodded. She rose, checking the pistol in its holster at her side, and Book climbed out of his chair as well.

"Join me, Preacher?" Zoe asked, and he nodded.

"If this is as bad as Inara made it sound," Book said, "we'll need all the guns we can get."

Zoe nodded, and was about to reply when the ship shuddered faintly, and then flipped around violently, a heartbeat before a harsh beeping alarm filled the bridge. Both Book and Zoe grabbed onto the walls, bracing themselves, while Wash took _Serenity_ through a wild series of turns and loops.

"Wash, what the hell?" Zoe called as he straightened out then went into a climb.

"Got a fire," he grunted. "External. Someone just hit us with cannon fire."

"Cannon?" Zoe hissed, starting toward the copilot's chair.

"It's that _niao se duh hun dan_," Wash growled, and then went into another evasive spin. "He's either stubborn or just has a really well-engineered tub."

On the radar display, Womack's battered but functional ship closed in, firing its cannons again and tight on _Serenity's_ tail.

"We gotta shake him," Zoe said.

"No can do," Wash muttered. "I can outfly him, but we're a bug on a very clear canvas. I can shake cannon fire, but I can't dodge his sensors. I throw him off he'll be on our tail again in minutes."

"Then we need to disable his ship for good," Book said, and Zoe glanced to him. The Shepherd had a grave look on his face.

"You've got an idea?" she asked, and he nodded.

"We'll need a few minutes in the cargo bay," he said, and Wash grunted.

"I can buy you that," he said, eyes locked on his display, just before he inverted and dove so hard it made both of the passengers brace again, inertial compensators be damned. "But you guys had better hurry. I can dodge him, but not for long."

"Let's go, Preacher," Zoe said, and they hurried down the crew corridor

* * *

Gunfire slashed down from above, deflecting off the overturned beds, and cutting far too close for comfort. Jayne snarled and fired two quick shots, hitting another man and sending him toppling backwards.

"_Gorrammit,_ we're not the guys trying to steal your damn corpses!" Jayne shouted, reloading the rifle. Mal's shotgun boomed, forcing another man behind cover.

"Jayne," he muttered. "I do not want to die naked, nor do I want to die with you yelling in my ears. And I certainly am not feeling partial to dying with both of those happening at the same time."

"Aw, hell," Jayne muttered, firing a couple of quick shots. "Dyin' naked ain't bad, if you got a couple of girlfolk nearby when it happens." He blinked, glanced to Kaylee, and then fired another couple of shots. "Ah, 'cepting now. Dying now would be real bad."

"On that notion, I am agreeing," Mal replied. "Kaylee! You got that carpet working yet?"

"Just a sec, Cap'n," she called back. He grimaced, realizing she was in an even worse position than either himself or Jayne. They were at least armed and in cover. She was out in the open, and the only reason she wasn't being shot at was because Jayne kept making a whole lot of distracting noises.

"I got it!" she yelled suddenly, and Mal nodded.

"Jayne, suppress!"

Jayne grunted, and then hefted a large box magazine he'd scavenged from the corpse of the dead man. He loaded the heavy magazine into his rifle, rose, and squeezed the trigger. The weapon roared as he swept it across the balcony, squeezing off long, ten-shot bursts that forced Dumont's guards back into cover. Mal scrambled backwards as brass casings rained around his mercenary, who slowly stood, raking the expensive marble and plaster construction with a river of charged steel.

The guards dove for whatever cover they could, forced back under the waves of incoming fire from the huge, naked mercenary, and Jayne walked backwards toward the carpet, like an old action-vid hero.

There was, of course, a very good reason why Jayne hadn't used the box magazine to suppress the guards up until that point, and just as he reached the carpet, it reared its ugly head.

He ran out of ammo.

Mal was fiddling with the datapad, trying to figure out how to make the carpet take off, when he heard that horrible, empty clicking sound. Jayne mouthed a silent curse and dove onto the carpet, grunting as he hit; while the carpet was plush, it was still on a solid marble floor.

Then Mal activated the anti-gravity engines, and the carpet shot upwards like a balloon. It took Dumont's men a couple of seconds to realize they were no longer being shot at, and by the time they emerged from cover, they only had enough time to catch the terribly curious sight of a trio of naked, gun-wielding criminals piloting a flying carpet laden with stolen artifacts zipping up through the shattered skylight.

Mal, at least, managed to give them a bit of jaunty wave right before he flew out of sight.

"Kaylee, how fast can this thing move?" Mal asked, crouching beside her as she fiddled with the controls. She glanced up, shrugging, and he frowned, pushing the flying carpet's engines a hard as they would go. They emerged out into the open air, the chill wind of Silverhold's upper reaches making Mal's hair stand on end-

And then he was deaf.

A ringing came to his ear a second later, and he found himself lying flat on the carpet, beside Jayne and Kaylle, who'd both been knocked prone. A horrible aching shot through him.

Less than twenty meters away was the intruders' ship, still hovering over the mansion, and a large, multi-barreled cannon was swiveling around, the remains of one of the security drones that had been flying around the mansion tumbling past.

"Big gun," Mal said, but he could barely hear his own voice as he turned the carpet and flew it as far away from the ship as possible.

It wasn't far enough. The cannon swiveled as it hunted targets, and the barrel whipped around to point at Mal, leveling three long tubes as wide across as his head directly at the flying carpet.

* * *

The remaining guests were filtering out, the panic dying down as the volume of nobility slackened. Dumont had staggered to his feet in the foyer before the entrance to the mansion, cursing and muttering, holding a silk napkin to his smashed nose. He glanced up as his security chief ran over.

"They're gone," he reported. "Their shuttle took off." Dumont nodded, fighting to keep the towering fury under control.

"The listening device is attached?" he asked, and the security chief nodded.

"I got two men over there before they could lift. They set the device. We should be able to monitor their communications and track them." The officer's tone carried a tiny air of disapproval, and for good reason: there were at least a dozen intruders inside the mansion and Dumont had his men running around chasing Inara because her consort had punched him.

"Good," Dumont growled. "Get me Macdonnel, tell him I have a rush job for him and his thugs." He didn't like the man, but Macdonnel's gang of killers and mercenaries were good muscle, and he'd used them well in the past.

"And get all the extra security teams on hand. Once we've expelled these invaders, I want Miss Serra. Alive." He started to stalk away, but then paused. "And if possible, we'll get our hands on Captain Reynolds, as well. I know he was behind this. And that bastard Womack, too."

* * *

Womack was angry.

Of course, that was a natural outgrowth of the situation he was in. Not only were the pieces not playing like they were supposed to, and not only was he forced to use much more overt force than he was planning on using, and not only was his very, very expensive ship damaged and plummeting into the lower atmosphere with his two associates frantically working to fix the engine. No, that wasn't it.

Malcolm Reynolds had played him again, and he'd been a complete idiot.

He understood, and at some level, appreciated the simple elegance of the plan. Multiple EMP charges had been set across his ship. One crewmember in sight who spoke of the insurance in a singular fashion, to make Womack think he'd only planted one bomb. One very cleverly hidden device in the engines, two less cleverly hidden devices elsewhere, a whole lot of smug, confident talk by the smug, confident criminals against the stupid police. Find one, assume you'd found Reynolds' trick and beaten him.

Womack had fallen for Reynolds' manipulative, false smugness it like a complete backbirth.

And that. Pissed. Him. Off.

"_Almost got it!"_ Milo yelled over the intercom. Womack struggled with his ship's controls, trying to bring them back online, cursing and snarling and checking the atmosphere seals as they fell. If they were offline when they hit the poison clouds, they were dead in an instant.

"_Engines coming back online!"_ Milo called again, and power thrummed through the disabled vessel. The familiar roar of working, overcharged engines filtered through Womack's bones, and the consoles before him lit up. He jammed the engines to full power and brought the gunship around into a climb. They shot up into the sky.

He checked his radar, and spotted _Serenity_, hurtling away, but no longer toward Dumont's estate, a quarter of a world away.

Womack didn't care. He brought the gunship around and rocketed towards them. His eyes flicked over his weapons displays, and he snarled. The only ship-to-ship ordinance he that were working were his cannons; the missile pods were still disabled. He was going to have to do this old-school.

That was fine. Womack let his anger bubble up, and fed it with the spikes of hatred and personal embarrassment. Reynolds and his crew were going to pay for being so damned clever.

* * *

_Serenity's_ cargo bay was home to a bouncing, jerking mass of metal, along with the roar of a working engine. The enormous, battered yellow mule that had served it well in the last few months had been swinging back and forth in the middle of the bay, its antigravity systems not precisely meshing with the onboard artificial gravity systems. Zoe had finally shut down the drive and tied it down to the bay floor so they could work without it bouncing around.

That work was quick and dirty. Zoe had scavenged every scrap of explosive that _Serenity_ carried, and Book had worked over the miniature fusion reactor with skill that no man of the cloth should have picked up in his time.

"Preacher, you sanguine that this is going to work?" Zoe asked fiddling with the remote she was holding.

"If not, it shall be bloody," Book replied, clambering off the top of the mule. Zoe hit the intercom as he did so.

"Wash. We're ready."

In the cockpit of _Serenity_, Wash exhaled, and tried to find his equilibrium between giddy panic and icy cold calmness. When he flew, it was usually one or the other.

Today, it was calmness. He kept whispering his mantra, telling himself that he was indeed a leaf on the wind, and everything was going to be okay.

Doing that while dodging a faster, more agile, and much more heavily armed Alliance gunship with an enraged pilot trying to kill him only amplified the challenge a bit.

His wife's voice came to him over the intercom, and he further relaxed, as much as he could with tracers ripping past his ship. He slid into that tranquil place he danced toward on occasion while flying.

Hoban Washburne pulled back on the stick, and climbed.

Womack chased him, as was his wont, what with the whole killing rampage and everything, and that was fine. He watched the display, corrected his ascent, and sent the burly Firefly straight up into the sky. He double-checked the gravitic sensor, nodding and adjusting again to ensure he was exactly parallel to the pull of Silverhold's gravity.

"Here we go, baby," he called over the intercom. "Brace yourselves."

He held his breath, and counted to three. Womack was right on his tail, and he'd started firing again.

"Ivan," Wash whispered. "I owe you a beer."

The Firefly class had its faults, but as a transport ship, it was tough and rugged and could hold her own. It also had a major advantage in the placement of its engines. Wash was good at the Crazy Ivan maneuver, particularly with the issue of flipping engines over for sudden changes in direction. This maneuver had nothing to do with direction.

_Serenity's_ engines flipped, and the Firefly spun in place. In a heartbeat, it was facing back toward Womack's ship. Tracer fire rippled past the window, and Wash ducked reflexively, remembering the Reaver harpoon that had nearly claimed his life.

"Do it!" he yelled, as _Serenity_ continued to fly upwards, backwards, with no thrust. Only momentum kept them airborne.

Down below, Zoe hit the airlock doors, overriding safety controls and opening both of them at the same time. At the same moment, Book released the lines holding the mule down.

The mule dropped, tumbling out of the cargo bay. Below, Womack saw it coming, and cursing, he swerved out of the way, trying to keep _Serenity_ in line with his guns. The mule tumbled down toward the gunship, and then past it.

Zoe hit the detonator she was holding, and the charges they'd set inside the mule's power core blew, turning the hovercraft into one giant fragmentation grenade.

* * *

Womack's gunship was lightly armored, and not intended for a slugfest. he'd modified it for speed, not durability. The mule only weighed a couple of tons, but those tons became hypersonic shards of rending metal, and tore into the already-wounded ship. One chunk tore through the middle of the vessel, ripping a gaping three meter wide hole as it passed through. Another tore through the engines, pulping Milo as it screamed out the far side of the ship.

Womack tumbled out of his chair, realizing in a heartbeat that the gunship was only heading in one direction, and that direction meant death. As it started to tumble, he cut across the interior of the small ship, to the detachable one-man atmosphere skimmer hidden in the cargo bay. It wasn't self-contained and it only had enough power for one man, but it would keep him out of the poison clouds.

There were emotions: rage, hatred, disbelief, and pure, undiluted terror, but he fought them back. Survival was all that mattered right now.

Skunk was inside the little bay, blood covering his face. He staggered toward the skimmer, and was putting the keys into the ignition. His movements were slow, confused, and drunken.

He didn't see Womack as he came up behind his longtime associate, and he barely felt the three bullets Womack put into his back.

Grunting, the lieutenant threw the body off the skimmer and started up the engines.

Payback later. Survival _now_.

* * *

The cannon locked onto the flying carpet, and for a long, agonizing heartbeat, it hung there, not firing.

Then another, equally agonizing heartbeat passed.

Then another.

The fourth horrifically painful, drawn-out heartbeat was somewhat less so.

By the fifth heartbeat, Mal was getting both confused and annoyed, but by that time he had sent the carpet into a dive, dropping below the cannon's line of sight. At the same time, the cannon suddenly spun away and fired on another drone, blowing it apart. He could distantly see scars and battle damage marring the surface of the mansion elsewhere, locations where the ship's guns or Dumont's security drones had clearly missed their respective targets.

"Why didn't they shoot us?" Jayne breathed as Mal sent the carpet flying away from the estate as fast as he could. Kaylee finally spoke.

"'cause three naked folk on a flying carpet would make anyone pause, even for a sec?" she suggested. Jayne frowned, grunted, and nodded, before looking to Kaylee. He froze when he realized he was staring, and then spun away, looking hurriedly at any direction except toward her.

She turned away as well, so she wouldn't have to look at his muscled backside, and curled up, pulling her legs tight against her upper body.

Mal kept his eyes locked dead ahead as he steered the flying carpet away from the estate and toward their meeting point a few hundred kilometers distant. He guessed that even with the power behind the engines on this carpet, it would be a few hours before they got there, and it would be daylight by then.

"'s cold," Kaylee muttered.

"Mal's stupid idea," Jayne muttered. "Disguisin' us as corpses."

"Yeah," Kaylee added, mock-angry. "It's your fault, Captain."

"Hey, I got ya'll out of there okay," he shot back. "Sure, we all ended up like to the days we were born, but we're alive, and we got some bits of precious. I'd say it's a win."

"If you say so, Captain Tightass," Kaylee added, and that made him glower a bit in annoyance.

He didn't argue the point though, and just kept flying.

* * *

Over the desert plateau an hour later and a hundred and fifty kilometers from the Dumont estate, two vessels shot across the red desert, the stones below dark like dried blood.

"Sir, we've got the location coming up now," reported the pilot, and Dumont grunted. He was strapped in behind the pilot, checking his pistol again for the tenth time out of sheer anger-filled need to be busy doing something.

"Good," he grunted looking out the window. The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon, giving the stones a russet hue. "Do you see Serra's shuttle?"

"No sir," replied the pilot. Beside them, the ship belonging of his retained gang of thugs was moving up, the heavier engines on their shuttle carrying them faster and harder.

"I don't want to spook them," Dumont muttered. "Circle around, wait for-"

"Sir," the pilot interrupted. "I do have thermal trace off a ship, just landed. Looks like an atmosphere skiff. One humanoid lifeform down there, judging by the heat."

"Bring us down," Dumont ordered, and the pilot nodded. He relayed the order to Macdonnel's crew, and the two ships swept in, dropping low and descending toward the ship parked where Inara was supposed to be arriving soon.

They settled in, and Dumont was the first down the ramp, pistol in hand. His guards rushed down the ramp after him, and twenty meters away, Macdonnel's collection of a dozen and more swarthy, mismatched peons came running down their ramp, a myriad of weapons in hand.

Dumont cut across the cool, early-morning desert, ignoring the red dust scuffing his boots or staining his dress pants. He didn't care.

The lone figure was standing outside the small aircraft, watching them and waiting, indistinct in the dark. Dumont considered ordering his pilot to light up the spotlights, but he was too angry to delay, and instead strode forward. A dozen meters away, Macdonnel's men advanced, and the mixture of guards and thugs formed a rough semicircle around the lone figure.

"Where is Inara?" Dumont demanded. "Is she here? Inside your ship?"

The figure didn't answer, and instead started walking toward them, hands empty.

"If you're protecting her," Dumont snarled, "I will not be merciful. Hand her over now, or-"

The sun had begun to rise over the barren desert of red stones, and as it ascended, the light caught a flash of gleaming, polished metal.

A blade erupted from its sheath, and then the figure was among them, crossing the distance in a heartbeat, faster than anyone present thought possible.

Illumination descended through breaks in the clouds far to planetary east, casting a sliver of pale white light over the red stones. It reached over the landscape, lighting rock and sand and the faintest wisps of silver-gray clouds, along with a spray of equally red blood.

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**This chapter's original working title was **_"SIMON PUNCH!"_** for obvious reasons. Also, there was very little of River in this chapter. Precisely what happened with her and Dannet will be explored in the epilogue.

So, now we've come full circle, and this arc is nearly finished, so all that's left for the "Silver" arc is the epilogue.

Until next chapter . . . .


	46. Silver: Epilogue: Confession

_**Author's Note:**_ Long epilogue. Beware.

* * *

_**Epilogue: Confession**_

_"Why did you . . . ?"_

_"I figured this would be the place that you would go, to ambush Captain Reynolds' crew," the figure said. "So, I beat you here."_

_"But why?" Dumont crawled backward, trying to get to his dropped pistol, but it seemed a kilometer away._

_"Isn't it obvious?" the figure asked. _

* * *

"So."

"Yeah."

"Here we are."

Malcolm Reynolds stood in the middle of the barren desert, stark naked, and scratched his rear, as all men were wont to do.

"Least we got paid," Jayne muttered, and Kaylee, flying carpet wrapped around her shoulders, mumbled something under her breath.

Mal frowned, and looked away, watching for _Serenity_, and in the meantime, he enjoyed the one silver lining in all of this.

It really was a pretty sky.

* * *

The red stones were soaked with blood and strewn with bodies. Simon stepped out into the dirt, jaws wide at what he saw. He'd seen - and been part of - violent rampages of this scale before, but that didn't lessen the shock value of seeing them up close like this.

"These were Dumont's men," Inara whispered. "Did they get into a gunfight?"

"All of these wounds are from blades, not gunshots," the doctor replied, his tone distant as he performed a casual medical examination while walking past the dead. He stepped around the bodies of both liveried guards and plainclothes thugs, and then froze.

Someone was sitting in the shadow of a rock a couple of dozen meters away from the battlefield. He started toward the figure, first out of curiosity, but then he caught sight of brown-black hair, and the walk turned into a jog. It quickly became an all-out run.

He slid into a crouch as he reached the rock, and in the shade of the stone, curled up in a ball, was River.

_"Mei-mei," _he said, touching her shoulders. The look on her face was distant and unreadable, but her eyes swiftly locked onto his, and she shivered. "River, what happened?"

Her arms were wrapped around her legs at the knees, but they detached, dropping to the russet sand and stones. Her fingers moved along the ground, until they reached a matte black knife.

Simon stared at the knife, and saw the speckles of dried blood on the blade. Her fingers drummed along the handle, and then they rose. She stared at them for a while.

_"Mei-mei?" _he asked, and was dimly aware that Inara was standing behind him. River looked up at her, and then closed her eyes, fingers clenching together.

"It doesn't wash out," she whispered. "The damned spot. It never . . . ."

* * *

Wash pressed his lips together and pointedly looked away. Book, walking into the bay, quickly averted his eyes and completely turned his body, sighing as he did so. Zoë stared, unabashed, her face marked by solemn grimness while her eyes flickered with barely-controlled laughter.

Kaylee, still wrapped up in her blanket, hurried past, only to be met by Book, who had fetched some clothes for her out of the laundry room when they realized everyone was going to be coming in stark naked. He kept his eyes averted as she thanked him with an embarrassed smile and hurried past, clothes in hand.

Mal and Jayne strode up the ramp, the latter taking his cues from the former, who was just as completely unabashed as his second in command. Jayne actually seemed a tiny bit put out, but Mal wasn't.

"I take it things went badly in there," Wash said, refusing to look. Mal shrugged, and Wash was glad he didn't get to see the effect that motion had.

"Little bit of improvising," he replied. "Lost a lot of the gear we went in with, but everything worked out. And I think Kaylee loves that carpet."

"Hon, can we please clothe the Captain?" Wash asked.

"Yes, we should," she replied, pausing to look the Captain over. There was nothing there in that gesture, as she'd seen him in the raw plenty of times during the war, and he likewise. She glanced at the various precious art pieces they'd collected from the estate. "Well, sir, at least we're profiting from your crushing humiliation."

"You kidding?" Mal said with a grin. "I got to moon Dumont and those thieves without even having to try. That's efficiency."

"Can we efficiently get clothed?" Wash asked, still looking away. "If anyone else comes in and sees you guys like that, there'll be complaints. Formally lodged complaints. And I hate paperwork."

"Well, there ain't no one else on the ship but River, leastways," Mal said, stepping inside. That made Jayne blink.

"_Xiao gui_ ain't peekin' is she?" he grunted, glancing around quickly. "She goes off tellin' her brother I showed her man parts, he's gonna . . . gonna . . . _doctor at me_." Jayne made that sound like a fate as bad as being thrown out the airlock.

"She's not here," Zoë said, and the levity of the situation faded in a heartbeat.

"What." Neither Jayne nor Mal spared the thought for a question mark at the end of that sentence.

"She took off, sometime after you guys left," Wash said.

"Raided the supplies, took one of the knives and some of the extra infiltration gear. We have no idea where she went."

"And you didn't go lookin' for her?" Mal demanded.

"Hell, no way they could have found her," Jayne countered. "Not 'less she's wantin' finding."

"_Gou cao de_ . . . ." Mal snarled.

"She couldn't have done us much good anyway," Wash said. "Not with the trouble we had."

"Trouble?" Mal asked, and then suddenly remembered. "Womack? Did he-"

"Blew up," Zoe replied. "We dealt with him."

"How did . . . ." Mal paused, frowned, and looked around the cavernous bay, and a sudden realization hit him.

"Where's the mule?"

* * *

Thirty minutes later, Mal and Jayne had gotten dressed and cleaned up, though the tiny scrapes and wounds they'd each suffered still needed to be looked after. They were waiting at the cargo bay, especially after seeing what had been visible on approach.

Inara's shuttle pulled in and docked against Serenity over the brutal battlefield below. Mal had simply stared at it from the cockpit, while Jayne suppressed a whistle.

"Guess we know where she went now," Wash said, his voice tiny. He'd seen River's one-sided rampages before, but seeing two dozen corpses spread out like felled trees was still shocking.

They were waiting at the door when the shuttle's portal slid open. Inara and Simon emerged, neither looking too much worse for wear, though some red cuts marked the doctor's knuckles that looked suspiciously like they'd come from a closed fist hitting a man's jaw.

"Doc, 'Nara," Mal said, managing a smile at the Companion. "Everything okay?" Simon nodded, and Inara smiled back, if only faintly.

"It got a little exciting at the end, but we're fine," she said. "And we were very fortunate. Dumont figured us out and was trying to stop us. If it weren't for Simon and River, things would have gotten difficult."

"And River?" Mal said, looking toward the door to the shuttle, caught somewhere between relief at Inara's safety, something he suspected to be respect at Simon as he pieced together what the doctor had done, and annoyed anger at River, who he saw moving inside Inara's shuttle.

She hovered at the door, and he paused. She was clad in dark fatigues, hair pulled back, and the look on her face was distant, controlled, and – to his surprise – very calm and mature. She looked like a soldier or a warrior, not a scared, mentally-scarred teenage girl, and that gave Mal pause for a moment.

Only for a moment, though. He gently stepped around Inara and stood before the girl.

"What happened?" he demanded.

"Work needed to be done," she said, her face blank and neutral as she stared back. "Couldn't do it on the ship."

"Dumont's men were waiting for us," Simon explained. "She beat them there."

Mal glanced between the two of them, his anger melting away slowly as he considered what that meant. Had River foreseen that they'd get ambushed, and intervened to protect her brother and Inara?

He turned back to her, and to his surprise, River did not meet his eyes for a few moments, looking down at the deck. Finally she did look back up, but only when his anger had fully subsided.

"Permission to come aboard?" she asked, voice quiet. He exhaled and nodded, stepping back, and she set foot back aboard Serenity. A shift came to the girl's stance, as she relaxed, and then turned toward him.

In a flash, a knife came out, flipped over, and was presented to him handle first.

"The rules," she murmured, and Mal nodded. River didn't handle bladed weapons - or any weapons - without his permission. He took the knife from her.

"Welcome back, everyone," Mal said, and finally managed to relax a little himself. "Let's get the hell off this rock."

* * *

"What's really confusing me," Wash said some hours later, "is why these guys attacked exactly when we were going in."

"Same reason we did," Mal replied, pausing to take a sip of his drink. It was cider - the good kind, that cost a full credit a jug. "That party of theirs gave them good cover."

There were murmurs around the table from the rest of the crew. They'd thrown together a celebratory dinner of the best protein they could fix, mixed in with whatever niceties they'd been keeping in storage. There was a myriad scent of powdered spices, some fresh fruit, a half-dozen different and very real drinks, and the warmth of actual, fresh bread. They had the money to afford the good stuff now.

"You think they got away with the bodies?" Jayne asked, and Mal nodded.

"We didn't so much as hurt the operation as we just came along at a bad time," he said. "If we'd had time to talk, maybe things wouldn't have gotten bloody down there."

"They'd have shot you on sight," Zoe piped in, and Mal nodded.

"Personally," Simon added, "I doubt that the Operative's appearance at the party was a coincidence. In fact, from what he was telling me, it seems quite clear he was complicit in the raid."

There were more nods from around the table. Mal glanced about, noting everyone's expressions, and saw that Book was looking withdrawn. River had settled back behind her plate, eyes half closed and unfocused. She was playing with her food, and seemed distracted, but that was nothing unusual.

"His name was Nemo," Inara interjected. Everyone looked to her. "He called himself Nemo."

"Nemo. Nothing." River mumbled, and Mal grunted.

"Nothing left to see," he muttered.

"Didn't feel right, leaving all them folks there," Kaylee said from beside Simon.

"They were dead anyhow," Jayne said. "Weren't anything we could do for 'em."

"I agree," Mal said. "Wasn't much we could do to ease their passing 'less we cut all their throats out one by one, and we hadn't the time."

There was an unspoken bit to that. They all understood that in that moment, Mal's priority had been getting Kaylee, Jayne, and himself to safety first and foremost.

"I checked the Cortex," Wash added, "and there are Feds all over Dumont's estate. Better than good chance they found what he was up to."

"That'll take care of him," Zoe agreed. "And Womack, if the bomb didn't."

"Either way," Mal said, "we steer clear of Silverhold for a good long while. Maybe a century, probably two, just to keep on the safe side."

"How many planets is that we have to keep away from now?" Book asked, to which Mal shrugged, not really caring. "Well, at least we've solved our monetary issues."

"Seventy thousand credits, on top of what we get from fencing the rest of Dumont's priceless artifacts," Simon said. "I'm hoping we can line up a buyer who'll be willing to pay something around their worth?"

"Not likely," Mal and Inara muttered at nearly the same time.

* * *

Another couple of hours passed between dinner and the winding down of the evening cycle. Between the heavy meal, the stress of the day, and sheer physical exhaustion, most of _Serenity's _crew were either down or winding that way.

Wash wished he could have been one of them, and he dearly wanted to be down in his bunk snuggled beside his wife and rubbing the tummy where his son and/or daughter was developing, but he'd pulled watch duty by the virtue of being the first name Mal had thought of.

Rubbing his face and suppressing a yawn, wash rose from the pilot's chair. There had been no sign of pursuit or even a peep of Alliance interest in them since they'd burned out of Silverhold's atmosphere and aimed straight for a big patch of low-traffic Black on the edge of the system. It was hard to hide a ship in space, and Alliance ships tended to be giant gleaming beacons of "Stay Away," and none of them were nearby. He hit a few keys that essentially armed every sensor on the ship to send out a loud, angry alert if anything came too close to _Serenity_, and went to get something to drink.

He was halfway across the dining hall when Wash realized he wasn't alone. He slowed, glanced over to the table, and frowned, before moving on to the refrigerator.

On the table was River, lying back and peering out the skylight up above, the knick-knacks stacked up neatly on the chairs beside her. It had been odd back she'd started doing it, but by now, nearly a month afterward, it was a common sight. Once, they'd had to wake her up in the morning because she'd fallen asleep on the table looking at the stars.

"Can't sleep, _xiao teng_?" he asked, and she mumbled something in response while he poured himself some extra cider.

"Lots of blood," she whispered. "The Black sings and makes it clean again."

"Yeah, starlight has that effect," he replied. "though Zoe prefers sunsets. Me, stars are better. Lot more variety. Though I gotta admit, a sunset is pretty beautiful thing, you find the right atmosphere to look at it from." He started around the side of the kitchen, and then looked her way again, which made him pause.

Lying across her stomach was the electrosword Jayne had stolen, still in its scabbard. One of her hands was touching the sheathed blade, while the other was behind her head, propping it up. There was that same distant, distracted look in her eyes that had been there at dinner.

For a moment, Wash thought she was searching for answers to something. Zoe had that look, rarely, back before they'd gotten married.

"I understand Captain Hammer's rules," she said after a moment. "The blade is quiet and still. It wants to be born, but it won't."

"I still think you should put that back," Wash said, sitting down beside her. "Mal sees you with that, he's going to become upset, and that hurts the wrinkle lines."

"We must have a pretty captain," she said, and he nodded at that sage observation. "An unpretty captain is bad for business."

"Woe betide the gaggle of crooks who have a crusty, wrinkly, unkempt pirate king for their captain," he agreed.

A couple of minutes' silence passed, and he watched the stars pass alongside his copilot for a bit.

"You should name her Caroline," River suddenly interjected, startling him out of the silent reverie.

"Uh," he said.

"Caroline," she repeated. "If it's a girl."

"Why?" Wash asked, catching up finally.

"No reason," River replied, sitting up and placing the sword beside her. "I like that name."

"Maybe," he thought, considering her words. He nodded to the sword. "You going to keep that?"

"It wouldn't be happy if it had an owner who would mount it on a wall and forget about it," she said, holding the scabbard up before her and peering at it. "Jingwei would want his sword to be used. That's what his fingerprints say."

"You could buy it," Wash offered, and that made River frown in confusion. "You made ten percent of this job, right? That's seven thousand credits."

"Average market price for this weapon would be between seventy and two hundred thousand credits," she countered.

"Mal's never going to find a fence who can pay that much," Wash pointed out. "He'll be lucky to find a fence who can lay out a thousand credits for it..

She peered at the sword again, and Wash saw a gleam in her eyes as she looked it over. A smile quirked on her lips for a moment, and then she rose, moving toward Mal's hidden compartment. She opened it and hid the sword inside, along with the other stolen goods, and closed it up.

"I'll consider it," she whispered, still distracted, and then drifted away.

Wash watched her depart, frowned a very un-Wash-like frown, and rose to go back to the cockpit for another long night on watch.

* * *

Though it was late, there was still some activity in the cargo bay. Shepherd Book grunted and strained as he worked his way through the last set of weights for the evening. As he finished, a pair of hands helped guide the bench bar back to its groves.

"Thank you, Captain," Book said, sitting up and toweling off.

"S'fine," Mal replied, standing behind the preacher. Book looked up at the captain, seeing that restless posture he usually adopted after they'd gotten finished with a job, as if there was tension that still needed to be released.

"Do you want me to spot you?" he asked, and Mal shook his head. Book watched him for a second, noting his distance. "Something wrong?"

"Just pains me a bit," he said after a second. "Left them folks there anyhow."

"You said it yourself," Book said, between pants, "that you couldn't do anything."

"I know," Mal muttered, looking across that bay with the thousand yard stare of many veterans. "Just . . . doesn't sit with me, is all."

"I understand," Book said, rising, and Mal turned toward him, eyes focusing.

"Preacher, gotta question," he said. Book stopped in place, regarding the Captain, noting the curious look on his face.

"I know the Book has some things to say on killing," he said, and Book closed his eyes for a heartbeat, knowing where this was going. "In the time we've been here, you've taken more'n a few lives." He held up a hand. "Now I ain't the type to say whether that's right or wrong, considering I got the blood of more'n a few hundred folks on mine. And were you askin' me, I'd say you had good reason for it either way. I'm just . . . . how do you do it?"

"What do you mean?" Book asked.

"Stay a decent sort, even with all we do," Mal said. "We're not good men, Shepherd. We're not nice men, either of us, no matter how much we'll try to deny it. We all got blood on our fingers, some of it more innocent than others."

"Yes," Books aid, nodding. "But I disagree that we aren't good men. All men are good, somewhere inside them."

"Not all," Mal replied, shaking his head. "Not some."

"I'm afraid we're going to disagree on that matter," Book replied. "But if you believe not all men are decent, how do you stay that way?"

"I ain't decent," Mal replied. "I just stay true to me and mine, and what folks the 'Verse steps on ain't deserved it."

"Then that's good enough, Captain," Book said, and Mal frowned.

"Suppose," he murmured, and started walking away. "Thanks, Shepherd."

* * *

He finished checking over the infirmary as he did every night, putting his supplies back into place after dealing with the myriad of small wounds they'd picked up. It was a miracle, Simon mused, that no one had been seriously wounded during that shootout. he finished shelving the last disinfectants and antibiotics, and stepped outside, closing the door.

Mal walked by, and nodded.

"Doctor."

"Captain," Simon replied. They started past each other, only to find they were both going for the stairs beside the infirmary. They came to a simultaneous halt at the base of the stairs. The Doctor held back, as only polite, while Mal gestured for him to go on ahead. They went through the "you first," "no, please," bit a couple of times, before Mal got annoyed and started up the stairs anyway.

Simon understood his body language perfectly: if the Doc wanted to be polite, _fine_ then.

They got halfway up the stairs when Mal stopped and turned toward Simon. The Doctor came up short, a bit confused, and he met Mal's gaze for a second.

"Yes?"

"Heard from Inara," Mal interjected. "She told me after dinner that you beat up on Dumont, broke his nose and all."

"Yes, I did," Simon said, a little redness creeping into his cheeks.

"Good job," Mal offered, before spinning around and heading back up the stairs.

"Uh, thank you," Simon replied to Mal's back. The captain glanced back.

"Yeah," he grumbled, and disappeared up the steps.

Simon followed a few moments later, trailing the Captain as he worked his way through the ship, across the dining room, and disappeared into his bunk. The doctor waited until Mal was out of sight before moving to Kaylee's door and tapping the ladder on the closed door. After a moment with no answer, he pout in his code on the keypad and started down the ladder.

She was asleep below, and as soon as he climbed off the ladder, Simon closed the door behind him. he knew why she kept her door locked nowadays. Even six months afterward, Early's specter still haunted Kaylee.

"Kaylee?" he called quietly. She was sprawled out face-down on her bed, her halfway-visible face a mask of serenity while her arms and legs were splayed out as if she'd just tossed herself into the bed without care. Simon moved up beside her, crouching, and whispered her name again.

She mumbled and opened her eyes, blinking. They focused on his face, and she started for a moment, before relaxing. A weary smile crept over her face.

"Mimon," she mumbled, the words slurred by sleepiness and the pillow halfway in her mouth. She pushed herself up a little bit.

"You look a little tired," he said, taking off his shoes and then his vest. She preferred as few layers of clothes between them as they could manage, he'd learned.

"That your professional opinion?" she asked, rolling a little bit to one side, eyes closing again.

"Just an observation," he said, taking off his shirt and then his trousers. He laid them neatly on a chair across the room, and then climbed into bed beside her. She was still wearing mechanics' coveralls, but didn't seem inclined to shed any of them.

"'Kay," she mumbled, one arm lazily circling around his waist. "Cuddle." He obliged, pulled her close to him so he could smell her hair.

He wanted to ask her a thousand questions. he wanted to make sure she was okay, that the gunfight hadn't hurt her, that she was dealing with the stress and the humiliation and the tension.

All of those questions were answered as she pulled up against him, dragging him tightly against her. It had affected her, but she had him, and he knew somehow that simply holding him made it all better.

"You like the carpet?" she asked, her voice just a tiny murmur, and he nodded, cheek brushing her ear.

"Yeah," he said, sparing a glance at the expensive carpet Kaylee had insisted on spreading across the floor of her bunk, even though it didn't fit right. "I like it."

"Mmm. Good." She leaned further into him, her head in the hollow of his neck. He settled his chin somewhere in her hair, and closed his eyes.

Darkness, pleasant and warm and peaceful, soon came over them both.

* * *

It was very late in the evening cycle, and his body clock was telling him it was time to rest. The Shepherd had finished washing his hair and had tied it back, and found his Bible. He always made certain to read several passages before each sleep cycle, to keep the Word fresh.

He found it difficult to pick up the Bible, however, as memories of the very un-Christian thing he'd done today echoed in his mind, alongside the Captain's words. Still, he forced himself to look at the book, and to slide into the verses and scripture.

There was a knock at his door as he started to read.

"Hello?" came a familiar voice, in a familiar tone.

"I'm in here, River," he said.

"Is it heavy again?" she mumbled, and he smiled.

"No, I've tied it back," Book replied, and the door slowly opened. River peeked in.

"Am I intruding?" she asked. She glanced about the room, as if checking for threats, and when she saw Book's long mane had been secured behind his head, she seemed to relax.

"No, of course not," Book replied. "What do you need?"

She hesitated, biting her lower lip, and then stepped into the room, quickly closing the door behind her. At that moment she looked like a girl five years younger - scared and uncertain. She seemed nothing like the dark-clad woman in body armor and rugged gear she had been earlier.

Nearly three weeks ago, she had said she wanted to talk to him, but then she'd avoided him, and with the planning for the caper, they hadn't had time. Was she going to ask him now about what he'd learned?

"No," River said, and then closed her eyes. "There are dark words and echoing untruths bouncing around in the drums." She paused, eyes closing even more tightly. "No, that is not . . ."

She hesitated, and he saw her eyes go unfocused and distant, as if she was remembering.

* * *

_"You know my name."_

_Dannet slowly nodded, careful to keep the knife from cutting his flesh as he did so._

_"You don't know why I'm here."_

_"I have . . . theories," he said. He had heard she had escaped, a couple months after he retired. He had been quietly expecting this for a while now. A visit from the star pupil._

_Fitting, he thought, to die at her hand. If she wanted revenge, she could have it._

_She stared back at him, and he saw emotions flickering through her eyes._

_"Revenge is a fleeting emotion borne of pain and anger," she said, her voice an inflectionless monotone. It reminded him of the sessions he'd watched. "There is no benefit to revenge, as it simply leaves the person seeking it empty and bereft of purpose upon completion."_

_He watched her face, observing the tiny movements of her eyes, feeling the twitch of her fingers as she held the knife to his throat. Her stance and positioning were perfect, leaning over him in just the right manner to keep him from rising or fighting back, the knife held at the precise angle to inflict a mortal wound with a flick of a wrist._

_"Thank you," she said, after a second, her voice cold. "You taught it to me." Her eyes narrowed. "No, actually, you didn't. You _stabbed_ it into my brain, like everything else."_

_"Yes," he admitted, hating the way she was looking at him, and hating himself for what he did. He'd supervised the combat training and conditioning following the memetic conditioning that had altered her brain alongside the chemical and surgical treatments. He was as much a monster as the doctors who had ruined her brain, for he had built her into the living weapon holding the blade to his throat._

_They may have ruined her childhood, but he had _stolen_ it._

_Silence, for several long seconds. River Tam glared at him, her features a delicate steel mask that sent waves of accusation into him._

_"You're not here for revenge," he said, and her expression shifted a hair, eyes narrowing._

_"No," she said. "That is not my primary purpose. I have a very specific-"_

_She stopped, and then her free hand shot down, hammering him in the throat so hard that he doubled up, choking and gagging._

_A second later, Sym was in the room, pointing a pistol at the girl._

_She dropped the knife, and her hands shot up, one grabbing the wrist of the gun hand and twisting it out to the side while the other chopped in at Sym's neck. The impact sent him reeling for a moment, gasping, and she spun around, still holding the gun arm. She rolled underneath Sym's extended arm and twisted it around behind his back, while kicking out his knee at the same time. _

_Sym dropped to one knee, and she spun him around again toward one of the kitchen counters. In a single vicious motion, she smacked his head against the ceramic counter, and Dannet's bodyguard flopped over, dazed and insensate._

_Three seconds later, she had stripped the man of his belt and bound his hands tightly behind his back. Sym's pistol clattered to the floor in five pieces, followed a moment later by his backup sidearm, and two knives he carried, which she fished out of his pockets and sheaths with the speed and efficiency of a weapon-check drone._

_Eleven seconds after Sym had entered the room, he was unconscious, tied up, and thoroughly disarmed. In that time, Dannet had managed to crawl to his feet, but then she was back on him, shoving him against the wall with arms too strong for a girl so small._

_The ceramic knife pressed against Dannet's throat once more._

_"I have a very specific purpose," River continued, without missing a beat, ignoring the fact that she'd just crushed a trained bodyguard like he was a raw recruit at his first day at boot camp. "I need information."_

_"Are you going to kill me?" Dannet asked, gasping through his aching throat. Part of him wanted her to._

_Her head cocked sideways, and for the first time, he saw her steely mask waver, lips pressing together with consideration, and something . . . else._

_"I haven't decided yet."_

* * *

"River?"

"Father, I have sinned," she said, slowly and deliberately. "I must confess, otherwise."

"Sinned?" he asked, surprised, and then gestured toward the bed. "Please, sit," he said gently.

She edged toward the bed, and settled on the corner, arms wrapping around her and fingers closing and opening anxiously. She seemed scared, but not in the terrified panic that usually came with her disassociative spells. This was more anxiety and nervousness.

"I have sinned, Shepherd," she said, not meeting his eyes. "You cannot tell. God will be angry with you, and send lightning bolts."

He managed a smile at that, and nodded.

"Whatever you confess here, I will not speak of," he replied. Clearly, she had to be feeling guilt from the killing she'd been forced to do earlier. Simon had mentioned to him her reaction after killing Ott's crew, so he understood. "It is understandable, though few would blame you for acting in defense of-"

"No," River said, shaking her head. "Not killing. I need to confess something worse."

That made his eyebrows rise, and he shifted closer to her. What could be worse, in her eyes, than killing?

"Something worse?" he asked.

"Deception," she whispered. "Betrayal. I am untruthful. I have borne false witness."

"Lying?" he asked, and she nodded. "Lying is not that terrible of a sin, River. If it was . . . ." Book hesitated. After all, of anyone present on _Serenity_, he was in no position to chastise anyone for lying.

She shook her head, and he continued with another question.

"What have you lied about?"

She went quiet, closing her eyes, and her shoulders shook.

"Everything," she breathed. "Nothing. I deceived the Captain, and Simon, and you and Jayne and Zoe and . . . and I . . . I . . . ." her breaths came out faster, and he saw tears forming in her eyes.

"River," he said clasping her shoulder. "River, what did you lie about?"

* * *

_"What do you want to know?" he asked, and that question made her blink. They stood there, her pressing him against the wall with a knife to his throat, and for the first time in the entire confrontation, Dannet saw true uncertainty in her eyes._

_"I . . ." she said, pausing, and he saw that something else in her eyes again, a strange sadness and confusion._

_And suddenly, he was looking at the terrified little girl who they had been experimenting on, not the weapon they had forged out of her mind and body._

_"You're not going to kill me," he whispered. Were it anyone else being held at knifepoint, that would have been a confident accusation at her resolve. Dannet's words, however, were soft and quiet, reassuring and understanding._

_Her eyes flickered again, like autosensors seeking a target lock, and her jaw worked for a moment._

_"Different voices are telling me different things," she whispered, her expression hardening, or at least trying to. "The captain would say I should kill you. The mercenary says I should gut you and collect your ears." Her eyes unfocused for a second, but then locked back onto his. "My brother, the first mate, they are neutral. But the others whisper I shouldn't. They say I shouldn't hate you."_

_She leaned back, relaxing, and then a sudden flare of anger shot through her, and she shoved him back, pressing the knife and breaking skin._

_"But I should. I _should_ hate you!" The wild, angry expression hovered for a moment, before fading, her mouth curling and rising and falling a dozen different ways as emotions battled across her features. _

_He knew what they had done to her, how they had stripped her ability to control her emotions, and so Dannet simply watched in understanding as the tempest washed over her, the girl fighting a mixture of rage, hatred, sadness, fear, satisfaction, disbelief, and horror. The focus that had held her in tight control had wavered for only a heartbeat, but that had been all that was needed._

_"I should . . . ." she said, shaking her head and closing her eyes. She yanked him off the wall and slammed him back against it hard enough to shake the shelves nearby._

"_I _should_!"_

_He saw red wetness in her eyes. _

"_Why!" she screamed in his face. "You _hurt_ me and you _cut_ me and you _raped my mind _and broke me and Simon and my family and you killed everyone because you wanted me back for your_ gorram better world! _So_ why?"

_She smashed him against the wall again, this time hard enough to make stars flash in his vision. _

"Why don't I hate you?"

_Tears were running down her cheeks as his vision swam back into focus. She glared at him, the girl fighting the madness clawing into her, her mind a roiling turmoil of pain and emotional confusion._

_"River," he breathed, praying she was sensate enough to understand him. "River, please . . . put down the knife."_

_She opened her eyes and looked back up at him, suspicion and confusion rising up through the storm of emotion._

_"Why?" she breathed. "You don't want me to kill you? You said it was alright if I killed you."_

_He hadn't said it out loud, he knew, and she likely did as well, but it didn't matter. It was true, he didn't care if she got her revenge on him, on any of the monsters, because of what they had done to her. But he didn't want her to kill him because she was . . . ._

_"Because you're not a murderer, River," he said._

_She froze, staring at him, and all the emotions slowly faded, replaced only by trembling uncertainty. The knife shivered against his neck, warm blood tricking down his chest as it pierced his skin. The hand holding him shook, slowly at first, but then violently, and he saw it all begin to break down behind her eyes. Her mouth trembled, warm redness welled up in her eyes, and her shoulders began to shake._

_"I don't hate you," she said, her voice breaking, and she shook her head. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks. "I don't . . . ."_

_The knife came away from his neck and clattered to the floor, and the sound shattered the spell. The dam broke, and the girl fell forward, sobbing, head pressing into his shoulder._

_Rishard Dannet did the only thing he could. His arms rose up and wrapped around the girl he'd helped break, and he held her tight as she collapsed, whispering in her ear that he was sorry for it all, that she was okay, and that everything was okay._

* * *

"Totality," she sobbed, shying away from his touch. "No touching. Please." He withdrew his hand. "I was . . . selfish, so I deceived. Pretended I wasn't fine, used sympathy to deflect attention and responsibility for my own ends." She drew her knees up to her chest.

"I've been bad," she said. "I am a liar."

Book frowned, trying to understand what she meant. Had she been deliberately acting unstable just so that she would be left off the caper?

"Yes," she answered his unspoken question. "I deceived for time so I could do tasks unsupervised. I'm not supposed to do tasks unsupervised. I don't go off alone, and I don't manipulate my family to . . . ." She trailed off again, and he took the chance to move into her rambling.

"River, if you did this so you could sneak off the ship just so you could intercept those men, there is nothing wrong with that," Book said, moving closer so she could feel his presence. "However, you should have told the Captain-"

"I didn't do it for _us_!" she shrieked suddenly, shaking her head, and then froze, surprised at the sound of her own voice.

"I didn't do it for Simon or Inara," she continued, this time more quietly. "I did it for me. I was selfish."

"What?"

"I snuck away," she explained. "I went to hunt. I went for answers." She finally opened her eyes. "I found Dannet."

* * *

_Sym was rubbing his head, holding an ice pack to the massive bruise on his forehead. He grimaced, looking to Dannet as his employer prepared a pot of aromatic tea._

_"Sir, are you certain?" he said, and looked back across the room. Standing at the plate glass window was the girl who had so trivially defeated him, staring out at the silvery gas-wastes below. She hadn't spoken a word in the ten minutes since he'd awoken. In fact, she hadn't even moved from that spot._

_"Yes," Dannet assured his aide. The colonel had a dressing on his neck and a few bruises, but was otherwise uninjured. He hefted the pot of tea and poured three bowls. _

_"She is no threat," Dannet continued._

_"But sir, I-"_

_"I know the girl," Dannet said, his words quiet. "I know her too well. She is simply . . ." he paused, thinking, and finally sighed. _

_"She is very troubled." He lifted one of the bowls to his mouth, inhaled, and sipped the tea. "Mostly by my hand, and others like me."_

_"I see, sir," Sym replied, frowning. Dannet glanced his way._

_"She won't hurt me," he assured his aide, and then started toward the window and the table beside it. He set two of the bowls down beside the neatly piled collection of handgun parts._

_"Tea?" he asked, and he saw her reflection in the window. The girl looked back, glanced at the tea bowl, and her hand slowly unfolded from the knot they'd formed at her stomach. She reached down and picked one of the bowls up, sniffing._

_"Alkazer leaves, mixed with ginger extract," she said. "Grown on Boros." She sipped it. "Two years old."_

_"Exactly," he replied, nodding, and she turned back toward the window. Her fingers played across the bowl._

_"You were right," she said, after a couple of seconds. One of her hands rose, hovering in front of her face, and she slowly turned it, peering at her fingers._

_"Two months ago," she said, "some people came to hurt my family." She went silent for a few heartbeats. "I punched out all their blood. Now it stays on my fingers. I try to wash it off, but . . . ."_

_She smiled suddenly, but the expression was sad and distant, and he heard her let out a single, low laugh._

_"It . . . won't wash away." He clenched her fingers into a fist. "It doesn't wash away. Red and dark on my fingers."_

_Dannet was silent for a while, and sipped his tea._

_"I remember your first," he said, his tone quiet and distant._

_"He mocked me," she said. Her eyes narrowed, and he saw a flicker of anger in her. "He told me that Simon was very busy. He told me that I couldn't see him because he was too important. He listened, and he . . . he wrote . . and he knew I was crazy and he just kept . . . writing." _

_Her fingers tightened around the bowl._

_"I . . . _wrote_ instead," she whispered, jaw clenching, fingers tight around the bowl. "I saw them, and I showed them I could _write_, too. And then they were scared of me."_

_"Did that ever wash away?" Dannet asked. She glanced down at her fingers, anger simmering back, but still present._

_"It doesn't," she murmured. "It never does."_

* * *

Book paused, remembering the name, and then recognition came to him.

"Him," she said, nodding. "I saw him on the invitation and I used it to _find_ him. And I hunted him down."

"Did you hurt him?" Book asked, suddenly afraid that River had rushed off on a murderous, vengeful rampage.

"No," she assured him. "I broke his refrigerator, but not him. Just questions."

"And did you get answers?" Book asked, to which she went silent. Her hands clasped around her arms again, and she stared at the floor for what felt like several minutes.

"I don't know yet," she finally said, right as Book was about to speak again. He nodded.

"I can see why this makes you feel uncertain and conflicted," he said. "You think that you manipulated the crew's emotions to your own ends?" She nodded again.

"Well, then. Honesty, I think, is an important part of your relationship with the rest of the crew. Perhaps if you had asked the Captain for permission-"

"Captain Hammer is too protective," she said, shaking her head. "Same with Simon. And Jayne. None of them would let me leave." A few months ago, he would have remarked on the strangeness of Jayne having any say on protecting River, but not anymore. Instead, he simply nodded.

It struck him then how lucid River was at this moment. Even more so, how lucid she had been through the whole of it. To carry out a plan like this on her own, with a mind as damaged as hers, was a small miracle. Even the apparent manipulation, limited as it was . . . .

"It isn't a good thing," she hissed, catching his thoughts. "You're a Shepherd. You know right and wrong. I did wrong!"

"No, River," he said, reaching out again and putting an arm around her to steady the conflicted girl. "I won't say that you didn't do wrong. It's not my place to judge. But, the fact that you feel this after what you did tells me you wish to make amends, that you feel terrible guilt for what you did, when all you did was strike out on your own. The fact that you had to manipulate the others to give you the chance to act on your own simply tells me that . . . that maybe you feel that they're being too protective of you, even as you grow older and wiser."

She was silent, mulling over that, so he continued. He guessed she understood the gist of what he was going for even without him having to say anything, but both Mal and Jayne had attested that she enjoyed hearing people talk and tell her things even though she could read their intentions and thoughts.

"What you must take away from this," he continued, "is that you are becoming stronger now. That you've become able to act as you see fit, and can handle yourself. That you can stand on your own."

He squeezed her shoulder, and then realized that this was one of the rare times she'd let him - or anyone who wasn't Jayne or Simon or Mal - touch her.

"If you feel that you shouldn't have done this, it is because you feel that they still have too much control over your life," Book explained. "Standing on your own is nothing to be ashamed of, and while there will be times when you will still need that emotional and physical support, the fact that you can be independent is a sign that you are recovering."

"Recovering," she echoed. "That I'm . . . I am . . . ."

* * *

_She'd moved away from the window and had settled down in a chair by the table. Her fingers were tracing shapes along the spotless wood, and he realized after a while that she was making Bessel functions with her fingertips._

_"You've improved," he said, watching her, trying to gauge her reaction. Her other hand kept alternating between touching the bowl of tea and the ceramic knife. He wondered where she'd found that, and knew that it meant she had planned this through instead of acting on a spur of the moment. "You're more lucid."_

_"I am functional," she replied, and something in the way she said those words struck him. They were important words, he could tell, an internal mantra._

_"You've found some treatment to handle your mental instabilities," Dannet suggested, to which she shook her head, eyes hardening._

_"No. I am focused. There is a difference." Her hands stopped moving. "There is no treatment for what you gave me."_

_It wasn't an accusation, though he knew it easily could have been. It was simply a statement, and he refused to deny it or offer any excuses. Heaven knew she had already heard enough of the latter._

_"You said you came here for information," he said, and she nodded. _

_"I learned you were here," she said. "I didn't expect to see your name, but I did."_

_"You came in vain," Dannet said, shaking his head. "I was only your combat trainer. I didn't know anything about the surgical procedures or transport or acquisition. And I left two months before you escaped, so I can't give you anything you don't already know."_

_"I know," she said, and that brought pause to him._

_She was an empath, one of the most powerful ones he had ever encountered. All the information she could have wanted about the Academy had already worked its way into her mind, whether she understood it or not._

_"Then why did you come here?" he asked, and she looked away, eyes drifting toward the knife, and then back up._

_"Association enhances memory," she said, and smiled faintly. "Hypothesis was that exposure to a familiar mind would help organize my own thoughts and memories. Would help fix my brain, or at least sort out what I remember from what isn't real."_

_"Did it work?" he asked, and she shook her head._

_"I don't know, yet," she said, and turned to look out the window. They sat there in silence for a few moments._

_"I wanted to . . . ." she said suddenly. "I wanted to . . . cut, like they cut on me. Like you cut on me."_

_He was silent on that, considering all he remembered, all he had seen, and he didn't blame her._

_"We are all now sons-of-bitches," he said, mostly to himself. He glanced to her, seeing a mixture of hard anger and soft grief on her face, fighting for dominance._

_"River . . . why don't you hate me?" he asked. She kept staring out the window, eyes only moving to blink, her hand tracing circles in the wood._

_"I know I should, but . . . I can't." She shook her head. "Many voices teach me many different things. If some of them were standing here, they would have killed you already, and not felt any grief over it. Because of what you are, because of what you did. Because you made me hurt. But you . . . ."_

_She closed her eyes._

_"You look at me, and you see a person. Not a tool. You're still human." She opened her eyes, and looked down at his hands. "And it never washes away."_

_Silence again, for a long while. The distant putter of cleaning drones was audible as he stared out the window, looking away from her._

_"Is it too late to ask you for forgiveness?" he asked._

_"You helped them hurt me," she said, voice distant. "Even when it hurt you." A moment's stillness, and her hand reached across the table to take the knife. As he watched her, she pulled it back and slid it into a sheath hidden up her sleeve._

_"No," she finally said. "Its never too late."_

_"Then you should forgive yourself first," he said, and that left her quiet for few heartbeats. _

_"I should," she whispered. "But I . . . to you, first."_

_He smiled, tired but feeling a weight lifting off his shoulders and heart._

_"Thank you, River," he said, closing his eyes._

_"Time to go," she whispered, after a few moments, and he opened his eyes. He looked into the window's reflection, and then spun around, searching the kitchen._

_By that time, River Tam had already disappeared._

* * *

"That I am . . . functional," she finally said. There was something in the way she said those words that struck him, as if they had a deeper meaning than their simple definitions.

"Yes. The Captain, if he has any respect for you - and your brother, too - will understand, if you explain the situation to them," he said. "Especially considering that through your actions, you also saved Inara and your brother."

"No."

He blinked.

"I didn't save them," River said, her eyes distant. "That wasn't me. They were already dead when I got there."

She looked down at the floor, at her bare feet, and sniffled, before rising.

"I will explain," she whispered. "Not yet. Not until their reds are washed down and away. But I will explain to them that I am . . . functional." She managed a slight smile at Book. "Thank you, Father."

"That's what I'm here for," he replied, and waited until she had departed before he let the weight of those last sentences hit him.

If she hadn't killed those men, who _had_?

_

* * *

_

_Dumont's leg was in agony, and he was trailing blood as he crawled over the red dirt, the sun rising in the east and splashing over his face. He could barely see the figure's silhouette, framed in the rising sun._

_But he was almost to his pistol, and the figure was a dozen strides away._

"_Naturally, I can't let you harm him," continued the figure, stalking towards him. "He is . . . important."_

"_He's a criminal," Dumont said, almost to his weapon. "A thug and a thief and he stole from me!"_

"_He stole nothing, I think," replied the figure. "It was my men in there who carried out the operation."_

_Dumont's hands closed around the pistol, but he froze, and then spun around, raising the weapon._

_The sword sliced down, the figure somehow already on top of him, covering a dozen strides in an instant. Pain lanced through his wrist, and Dumont saw blood spray from his arm._

_His severed hand lay a few feet away, clutching his pistol._

_Dumont cried out in agony, but even through the scream, he could hear the figure's next words, and saw the sword arc up over his head, point leveled downward._

"_Tell me, Dumont," he said. "Do you know what your sin is?"_

* * *

-

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_ And that's it for "Silver."

The genesis of this story was an unusual one. I've developed a lot of individual ideas for "episodes" for this story, most of which evolve gradually as the overarching story progresses. Silver is the one that changed and developed the most as time progressed, and it was originally planned to happen just after "Condor" but I pushed it back to after "Mosiac" because that episode hit me over the head like a tire iron. Then I had the idea for "Adrift" and I began working on that, and finally this episode came along and seemed to naturally fit into place. (if only it had naturally fit into my schedule, too....)

Originally, "Silver" was simply a short caper piece, tossing the crew into another ritzy high class party and watching the hilarity, but as time passed and the story progressed, new ideas began to creep in. Over time, the Operative was added, then Womack, and then the connections with the Academy via Colonel Dannet. Midway through writing "Adrift," I had the off-the-wall idea of Mal and Kaylee zipping around on a flying carpet and, well, you see where that ended up. :P

The conversation between River and Dannet was also one that kept evolving and changing, though less in content and more in placement. It was originally supposed to go in the previous chapter, but when I tried to integrate it, it seemed off. The juxtaposition between all the punching and explosions and naked flying carpet antics and the relatively quiet and personal conversation was too jarring, so instead I decided to integrate it with River's equally personal confession to Book regarding what she felt was a betrayal of the rest of the crew.

Another change for this arc was the inclusion of River's own little side story, which came as a natural evolution from the interlude prior to it. The core idea was to show River's development by having her operate on her own, as a sort of test of her own abilities and her own independence. Just as the last interlude had River making the decision to grow beyond her limitations and stand on her own, this chapter involved her acting on that. But at the same time, doing such a thing, in her eyes, was also a betrayal of the crew in their most vulnerable moment, and as such it wracked her with guilt, leading to the necessity for her to confess to Book.

As an aside, I totally didn't expect everyone to figure out who the one-man-army was that quickly. And I'm glad _someone _got the _Watchmen_ reference last chapter, too. :P

Until next chapter . . . .


	47. Second Interlude

_**Interlude: Resonance**_

_There were two people in the room. Well, three, if one counted the guard at the door, but he didn't count, so there were only two present. They sat at a simple wooden table, small but polished, smooth and clean. Two small mugs sat on it, beside a pitcher of herbal, scented green tea. A bit of smoke drifted from the cigar the woman preferred, but was swept away by the atmosphere processors._

_He leaned back, looking at the woman as she inhaled and then exhaled. Her features were fine boned and soft in the dim illumination of the little meeting room, the faintly red-white lights coming from all four corners. Despite that, there were dark lines of age on her skin, wrinkles that only stress brought about, and which she didn't care to have worked away._

"_This situation," she said, after a moment, "is untenable."_

_He considered disagreeing with her. But an officer of Alliance Special Projects, especially one of her age and rank, wasn't the type to argue with. It could have unpleasant repercussions._

"_Of that we agree," the man replied, and he stifled the smile he felt as she shifted gears. She'd been expecting an argument, a bevy of excuses, or maybe just begging. Not agreement._

"_Good," she said after a second. "I've read the reports. Turnover rate is far too high, and the resources we need to keep canvassing for potentials is stretched thin."_

"_The processes are difficult, I admit," he replied. "We've had to euthanize several subjects, but that's unavoidable."_

"_Euthanasia is not my concern," she replied. "My concern is the suicide rate."_

"_Yes, it is distressing," he agreed._

"_Damned right, it is. You're imprinting them with combat and adaptive espionage training. How the hell did you not expect them to start acting on their psychoses?'_

"_We didn't expect-"_

"_Expect what? A thirty-five percent attrition rate due to suicide? You break them, and when someone is broken and not allowed to escape or heal, it is only human nature to lash out at one's oppressors or to end one's suffering. And it is the nature of the animal we deal with."_

_He stared back at her, and felt a tiny bit rattled by the woman. She wasn't an Operative, but she was just the same either way. She understood what she was doing, she knew what she was funding, and she neither shied away from it nor excused any aspect of it._

_That was what scared him shitless._

"_And I have watched the latest set of reports, particularly E-One-Three-Seven's counseling sessions. Especially the last one. Tell me, who had the bright idea to give your pet assassin a metal object with a point?" She held up a hand. "Don't answer. That was rhetorical, I'm still bitching at you, and you'd damn well listen."_

_She jabbed a finger at him._

"_Get the suicide rate under control. I don't care how. If you have to strap them down and sedate them twenty-four-seven, do it. I do not have the resources to canvass all of Alliance space to hunt down potentials." She paused, taking a quick puff on the cigar. "And for the love of Buddha, do not let E-One-Three-Seven die. She's the best subject we've developed in the history of the project, and she's got savant-level adaptation and analytical capabilities. Cerberus needs her, and if we lose her, we'll be set back a decade."_

"_Yes, ma'am," he managed, and she nodded. She gestured, and the guard walked over to her, pulling the wheelchair she was ensconced in away from the table. Without another word, he pushed her out of the room, leaving the man alone in the soft red light._

* * *

He was sitting across the room, a smile on his face that one could swear was made of crystal sugar. Sweet, pretty, pleasant, but brittle as all get-out, and would shatter if the slightest weight was applied to it.

Well, he decided as he stepped into the room, let's see how fragile it really is. Apply some _pressure_.

He paused as he moved into the door, and looked back at the doorway. The ship's laboring engines rumbled distantly.

"Something is the matter?" the man asked, his accent thick, just like he thought it would be.

"The door," he said, pointing. "It's . . . just there."

"Hm?"

He looked back, and saw the smile still lingering.

"The door is there," he continued, gesturing toward it. "But the door, by itself, is just that." He pointed to the floor outside, and the guards. "There's no point behind it, without the hallway. Without the men protecting it. And they, in turn, don't have any meaning without the door."

Silence. Good, he had him confused. But he was still smiling.

"None of it means anything without the proper context," he said as he stepped into the room, holding out his hands. "And that is us."

"You are a, eh, philosopher?" the old man said, his brittle smile still there. He shook his head.

"That ain't it at all," he replied. "I'm just a predator. Same as you."

"Then we must get to our business," the old man said. "You know who I am, yes?"

"Adelei Niska," he replied, sitting down in the chair. It squeaked a little, and that made him cock his head to the side. "What's the point behind that?"

"Hm?" the brittle smile lingered.

"The squeaking," he mused. "Why does it squeak? Why not whistle, or honk? Why does the . . . the escaping air pressure, moving at that speed, produce such an annoying sound?"

"You are here for business," the old man said, his voice dropping. But that smile was still there. Tougher than it looked.

"I am," he replied, leaning forward. "So, let's spell it out. I've worked for your agents before, but never been invited in this context."

"You know this prey," Niska said, his smile still there, even with the shift to more serious matters.

"Now, that's a bit of an assumption," he said. "I don't have prey that gets away. Just prey that's a little better at evading me."

"Ah," Niska said, his smile growing, if possible. "But I know that you are very proud. Have a very solid _reputation_. You do not want this to be sullied, yes?"

"If it could be sullied," he replied with a grin, wondering what it would take to break Niska's smile. It was getting . . . _unsettling_. "But you should know, I have a perfect record for catching what I hunt."

"And thus I know you are a bad liar," Niska replied. "For there is one prey that _has_ escaped you."

He reached down and picked up a datapad, and laid it out before him. The hunter peered over the names listed, and his own smile slowly faded.

"_Serenity_," he whispered, looking up. "How-"

"I have ears and eyes," Niska replied. "And I know who recovered you from the Black. I had him tortured to death some weeks ago. Most . . . cathartic."

"Be that as it may, I don't-"

"He was _very _talkative," Niska continued, his smile still plastered on, like an etching in rock. His hands were above the desk, and now the predator could see that the fingers on his right hand were a pinky and a ring finger short.

"Now, to proper business," Niska continued. "Malcolm Reynolds has caused me grief. He takes my money, his crew attacks my skyplex, his crew attacks my freighter, and he has been raiding my ships. I do not like this. I send a team to deal with him, they all end up in field on Corinth. They lack in breathing, and appreciable amounts of blood. So, I need a proper hunter."

"Then you've come to the right man," the predator replied, grinning. "You want Reynolds, I've got him."

"I want _all_," Niska said. "All of his crew. Alive."

"Well, that's a steep request. Gonna cost-"

"One hundred thousand for every crew member alive," Niska said. "Two hundred for Reynolds. Information here, for you."

He slid the datapad across the desk, and the hunter took it. He thumbed through the personnel files, nodding. He paused at one, pressed his lips together, and smiled, then moved a little further on.

"You've got it," the hunter said, and then paused. He smiled, looking over the very last one.

"The girl, here," he mused. "She isn't even out of her teens, but she's the most dangerous person on that boat." The hunter sighed, shaking his head at the notion.

"Does _that _seem right to you?"

* * *

_The corridor was white and well-lit, yet dark and lifeless at the same time. That was to be expected with hallways made of metal. The doctor walking down the corridor paused as he looked at the chart he held in his hands, and then turned to look up at the officer beside him. He hated dealing with the military, but the colonel was an exception._

"_She's showing increased signs of depression and growing self-destructive tendencies. I don't think I need to tell you how bad that is."_

"_We've lost too many due to suicide already," the colonel said. "We train them to fight, to be able to survive, and they turn that into methods to hurt themselves."_

"_The ones that remain sensate enough, at least," the doctor mused. "Another twenty percent need to be euthanized due to madness or catatonia. But One-Three-Seven's case is exceptionally worrisome."_

"_Because of her potential."_

"_Most of the others are just testbeds," the doctor explained, starting down the passage. The colonel kept eyeing him, as he would peer at a scientist who was dissecting a living animal. "One-Three-Seven is a rarity. She's an Empath whose telesthetic capabilities are very impressive – even before she was upgraded. But the kicker is that brain of hers. She's a savant, and she reads and analyzes data faster than most computers. Unconsciously. Part of the reason she talks like that. With the right gear, it's possible we could extend the effect across dozens, or maybe hundreds, of kilometers. The applications . . . ."_

"_Are useless if she self destructs or breaks down like the others," the colonel said. _

"_Right," the doctor mused. "That's why I'm considering we institute some reforms. Not a change in the process, but perhaps work on coping mechanisms."_

"_Security concerns mean we keep the subjects separate, and they don't interact well with lab personnel."_

"_Which is why I'm proposing we use a Blank."_

_A few moments of silence passed._

"_You can't be serious."_

"_On the contrary," the doctor said. "I know that Blanks are a special resource. We can't just pull them off security duties, but I have the perfect candidate, and we need One-Three-Seven alive and sane. Or at least functional."_

* * *

Barnaby's was a respectable bar, or at least as respectable as one could get sitting this close to the docks at Boros' capital city. That naturally meant it was only suitable for those below the middle pegs of civilized society, which was perfectly acceptable clientele at a set of docks that busy.

The haze that usually developed in such a place after it had stayed open until early morning without proper air filtration hung about the head and shoulders. Coupled with standard-issue uneven neon lighting, it made it difficult to make out faces past headbutting range - an issue only complicated by the copious amounts of alcohol being served. Tabletops were sticky with unidentified substances, and the pungent mixture of various inhaled drugs, even more varied drinks, and the dazzling myriad of scents produced by the human body lent the room its uniquely intoxicated charm.

"Oi, deary, what can I do for you?" asked the portly, dark-skinned bartender as he approached the woman by the bar, seeming to materialize from the ever-present neon-lit smoke. He grinned at her as he began wiping the wooden bar-top, his teeth glittering with gold, silver, and diamond.

"Lager, shot of Brunnick's Whiskey," she said, and leaned forward. The bartender's face scrunched up, and then his smile widened.

"Oh, deary, its you! I haven't seen you in ages, Ash!"

"You've put a lot of gold in your teeth since I shipped out, Morris," replied Ashley Frye, and the bartender laughed.

"Been good times, Ash," he said, mixing the drink behind the bar. "What brings you back here? Been at least two years, my reckon'. You on leave?"

"Sort of," the soldier said, taking the foaming mug from the bartender. "I'm on 'extended' leave."

"Ooooh," Morris said, his grin fading, and he nodded. "What happened? You get into an argument with your lieutenant again?" He raised his fists to insinuate what manner of argument he meant.

"Not this time," Ash replied. She took a sip from her drink, and nodded at the taste. "I'm looking for someone, thought you might know him, or where I can find him."

"If a ship passed through Boros, I know about it," Morris replied, nodding. "Got my ear to the 'verse and all."

"His name's Malcolm Reynolds," the soldier said, and that made Morris' face scrunch up, and not in thought. Ash paused in mid drink, seeing a bit of apprehension on Morris' face, and the nearby conversation quieted a bit.

"Yeah, I know him," Morris said, slowly nodding. He glanced to either side, and scowled. "Oi, what're you lot starin' at? Ain't you gonna leave a man and his lass in peaceful conversation! Git!" He waved beefy hands in the air, and the nearest people moved off, and the muted background conversation resumed.

"Aye, I know Malcolm Reynolds," Morris continued, his voice quieter. He leaned in close to Ashley. "Captains a Firefly, called _Serenity_. Goes here and thereabouts in the 'Verse, doing manner of work as they can find. What's your interest?"

"Start with why it got quiet when I mentioned him," Ashley replied. Morris frowned.

"You hear of a man named Adelei Niska?" Ashley shook her head. "Bad sort. Runs all the black marketing out of Ezra, mercenaries, smuggling, slave trading, you name it. He's got a major beef with Malcolm Reynolds, some kind of blood feud, started a year or so back. You go throwing that name about, trouble will follow you."

"Good to know," Ashley said. "Maybe he'll come find me."

"No, that's not how he works," Morris said, shaking his head. "Reynolds is a careful sort. He knows someone's onto him, he'll rabbit like a ghost on grease, understand?"

"You know anything about his crew? Where he stays?"

"He's got no regular berth, stays on the move all the time," Morris said. "Don't know much about his crew, just know they've seen off Niska's own mercenaries more than once. Rumors they've been involved with Alliance trouble, some stories mention Reavers, too. Nonsense, I says. What's your interest in them?"

"My sister," Ash said. "They might know where she is. She disappeared after some violence on Persephone, and I'm looking for her. Nothing else."

"That's why you're on extended leave, eh?" Morris asked, and Ashley shrugged, polishing off the last of her lager.

"Where are they headed, you know?"

"Heard a Firefly got hired to do some smuggling to Silverhold last few weeks," Morris said. "And I did hear Reynolds may have been in on that job. That's just a maybe, though, there's thirty thousand Firefly ships zipping about the 'Verse nowadays. But Reynolds' name did come up."

"Silverhold," Ashley mused.

"That's a ways from here, and they might already be gone by the time you get there," Morris advised her.

"Then I'd better leave quick, huh?" Ashley said, dropping some coins on the bar. "Thanks, Morris."

"Anytime, lassie. Come back when you need a drink and a word, alright?"

Ashley nodded, smiled, and pushed off from the bar, and slammed into a man standing behind her. She spun around, looking into the face of a pale-skinned man with black hair, a bushy black beard, and bright blue eyes.

"Hey, girl, watch it," the man said, his voice slurred from alcohol.

"Sorry," she said, pushing past him.

"Hey, stay a second," the man said, stepping after her, a mug in one hand and his other grabbing at her shoulder. "Might me and the boys show you a good-"

"No," Ashley said, turning to face him. "Sit down, before you break something."

"Ooh, tough girl, huh?" the black-haired man said, laughing and still holding her shoulder. "I like 'em tough. Any woman can kick my ass, I say-"

His hand was no longer on her shoulder, as she rolled under it and rose up on his left side. Her hand shot down, grabbing the mug the man was holding, and snatched it out of his hand, before spinning around and smashing over the top of the drunk's skull. The glass shattered into a dozen pieces, splashing Ashley and the drunk with beer, and the man went down hard.

"Told you, might break something," Ash grunted. She turned toward Morris, who was simply shaking his head, and she tossed him a couple of coins.

"Sorry about the mess," she said, stepping over the drunk and toward the door. A few moments later, the conversation around Barnaby's resumed. The drunk slowly picked himself up off the floor, and as he did so, he managed to see Ashley disappear out the door. He frowned, as he saw a second shape, larger and darker, step out a few heartbeats afterward.

* * *

_The monthly report was coming slowly, and for the man making it, it wasn't a pleasant experience. Hell, none of this business was. Some could turn off their brains and their emotions and take care of the cutting and the mental conditioning without a flinch, but he couldn't Probably why he'd been regulated to administrative and behavioral operations, instead of biochemical._

"_In the months prior, Subject E-One-Three-Seven continued to show abnormally reticent behavior, refusing to speak with operations personnel, trainers, or the counselor assigned to her following the incident. We suspected that this was due to the constant protection detail assigned to her. Subject showed minimal interest in combat and telesthetic exercises, and required memetic code activation to be coerced into participation."_

_The doctor paused, taking a sip of his drink. He looked around his office, part of his apartment in the residential complex deep underground, well removed from the main facility. He knew, though, that concrete was no barrier to _them_._

_How many were listening to him, right now?_

"_This changed shortly after introduction to Blank-One-One-Seven. Contact with One-One-Seven resulted in active but guarded conversation between the two during assigned social interaction and eating periods. Doctor Mathias suggests that this is due to introduction to a Blank that is not considered security personnel and is in roughly the same age group, though four years One-Three-Seven's senior."_

_The doctor paused again, checking his notes._

"_We have noted an increase in interest and participation in exercises following the introduction to this new element, and have authorized him to continue participating in combat exercises. Observation of their attitudes shows an increased emotional connection from One-Three-Seven toward One-One-Seven. This has led to some concerns about behavioral conflicts, particularly due to the strict need to maintain control over all subjects' hormonal tendencies during puberty and teenage growth periods. Doctor Clef has assured the staff that the treatments given by Doctor Brinks will keep sexual desires and feelings suppressed for prolonged periods, and that the next round of yearly treatments should keep sexual activity suppressed for at least fourteen months. We should have no worries that One-Three-Seven will develop sexual desire for One-One-Seven."_

_The doctor paused, frowning, and took another sip from his drink. It was the best vodka money could buy, but he wished he could spend the piles of cash he was being paid on something better._

_He started to speak again, but paused, looking up at the entrance to his office. He frowned, and set the recording wand down._

"_Colonel," he said, sitting up in his chair. He noted the grave look on the officer's face, which set off mental alarm bells. "What happened?"_

"_We had a breach," the officer said, and stepped into the room. Two armed soldiers – not facility agents, but armored Alliance personnel – stepped into the room. "There's been an escape. I'll need to see your files and records _now,_ sir. And these men will escort you to holding."_

"_Holding?" the doctor breathed. "What the hell-"_

"_The escapee had assistance," the colonel said, voice deathly calm as the soldiers moved into the room and flanked the doctor. "We have confirmed an internal breach of security. Doctor Kondraki is also missing. Two test subjects are gone. You will be moved to isolation and we will identify the cause behind this breach."_

"_Sir, please come with me," one of the soldiers said, not in a particularly threatening manner, but with plenty of authority behind it. The doctor slowly rose, mind racing as the colonel spun on his heel and turned to leave._

"_Which ones?" he called after the officer. "Who escaped?"_

"_Empath-One-Three Seven and Inducer-One-One-Nine," the colonel said, pausing and looking back. "As I understand it, Sergeant Garis is most upset. He'll have . . . questions, for you."_

* * *

The docks of Boros were like any other dock in any other major port on any other planet in the 'Verse. They were crowded, noisy, colorful, and aromatic. That happened when hundreds of different cultures intermixed and then got dumped on three hundred-odd worlds that each developed their own distinct flavor. Ashley Frye, previously Corporal Frye before her discharge, moved through the crowds with a worried gait. She was used to walking through such crowds, but usually in full gear, and always worried that an Independent would come along with a knife and an attitude.

Now she had another feeling, one she'd gotten while participating in a seek-and-destroy on some moon in Kalidasa two years after the war: that familiar sensation that she wasn't alone.

Of course, that was an absurd notion. She was in a crowd of hundreds of people from every corner of the 'Verse, but that didn't shake the nagging presence of someone tailing her, watching her every move.

She was being hunted.

Morris had been right when he said to not throw around Malcolm Reynolds' name so readily. For a moment, she considered finding the nearest police detachment and flashing her ID, but quashed that. If someone was tailing her because she'd mentioned Reynolds, that meant they knew something about him. That meant they probably knew more than she did.

So, she found a quiet side alley between a restaurant and a pawn broker, and ducked down it, drawing the sidearm she carried as she did so. She hit the charger, and felt the weapon's familiar warm-up whine, and hurried into the relative darkness of the alley between the two shops.

She found a spot behind a dumpster and waited in the darkness, listening and watching the mouth of the alley. People passed by, and the smell still drifted in, mixed in with the pungency of a dumpster behind a restaurant. She kept her eyes on the mouth of the alley, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Nearly fifteen minutes passed between her entering the alley and now, and the only person who'd entered the alley was a short, pasty-faced busboy from the restaurant, who'd only paused to glance at her before dumping a trashcan in the dumpster. He didn't even blink at her drawn sidearm, and instead simply hurried back inside.

She frowned, and was starting to get frustrated, but she held her position. The hunt-and-kill patrols she'd often been on after the war ended were dependant on patient ambush, and she'd waited days before to catch unwary prey. She could wait for her slow pursuer to catch up to her.

A zip-click at her back said otherwise.

"_Gorram_mit," she breathed.

Important rule about preparing an ambush: make sure the enemy didn't counter it by maintaining a good watch.

"I see you been in the military too long," a deep voice, tinged with a general Border accent, sounded behind her. "Used to having a squadmate cover your back. Lose the weapon."

She dropped the pistol, and a boot moved past her, kicking it away. She saw it was a carmine color, with stainless steel framing it.

"Alright, now turn around, and don't worry none. I'm not going to hurt you, 'less you give me reason to."

She did so, and looming over her was a bald, dark-skinned man in a carmine-colored outfit that looked like a mixture of armor and an environment suit, missing only the helmet. He had a simple stripped down, polished pistol pointed at her stomach, and something about him set her on edge – beyond the gun, obviously.

"So, Corporal – is it Corporal now? You got put on leave, I suppose, but that changes things a mite." He gestured with the pistol as he spoke, eyes wandering a bit off of her, but she didn't doubt for a heartbeat that he wasn't paying attention. Ashley had seen bounty hunters in operation before. "I know you were setting up an ambush for me. Circled around once I figured it out. Woulda worked too, if it weren't someone clever like me, and you had someone covering your back, but that's not here nor there."

"Who are you?" she asked, following the obvious tack. He shrugged.

"Name's Early," he said. "I'm known to some. And I hear you're throwing a name around that I'm awful interested in." He held up a hand. "Don't play the 'don't know what you're talking about' line. _Serenity_. Reynolds. I heard it, clear as a lie."

She narrowed her eyes, and Early watched her, a smile appearing on his face that sent shivers down her spine.

"Though you looked familiar," he whispered. "Kaylee? That a familiar name?"

Ashley froze up, a sudden spike of fear lancing through her. How did this man know Kaylee's name? And worse, how did he know her face, at least well enough to identify her from her resemblance to her sister?

"Now, I got a powerful need to learn about _Serenity_," Early continued. "And I know you've gotten some measure of what they're up to, so let's make this very gentle, and don't raise no trouble, by having you tell me what I want."

The gun in his hand made a compelling statement, but the way he'd spoken of Kaylee, and the horrible smile he was wearing, set off way too many alarm bells in Ashley's head.

"How do you know my sister?" she asked, and he sighed.

"That question won't take you nowhere you'll like, darlin'," Early said. "Just tell me what you know about _Serenity_, and I'll be on my way."

That answer was precisely what she didn't want to hear, and it convinced Ash that telling him anything else would be a bad idea. She could read between the lines pretty well, and Early had something to do with her sister.

"Go to hell," she whispered, and his smile became a slight frown. He inhaled, and let it out in a frustrated snort.

"Darlin', heard a lot meaner things in my time," he said, and then the butt of the handgun smashed against her face.

It was fast. Faster than she'd imagined a man could move or strike, but he'd crossed the respectable distance between them and smacked her in the head in an eyeblink. She rolled with the blow, more out of reflex than anything else, and came up with a hard, straight jab into his midsection. He didn't even bother blocking, and her hand thudded against his chest.

Early didn't slow, and instead drove a knee up into her gut. She doubled up, and he spun around her, grabbing her by the shoulder and slamming her headfirst into the wall with frightening strength. The impact sent flashes across her vision, and she tumbled to the ground.

She tried rising, but he planted a boot against her back and pushed her down into the grime of the alley floor.

"Stay down," he muttered. "You ain't nothin' exceptional, so don't pretend you're a hero, darlin'. Otherwise I might treat you like I did Kaylee."

Everything went white for an instant, and fury sent her whipping around, throwing off his boot and slamming her torso into his other leg. Early wobbled, trying to regain his balance, and a sweeping, dizzied leg took him completely off his feet. He toppled to the alley floor, and she scrambled to her feet.

He was fast, though, and was rising almost as quickly as she was. She went for his gun hand, batting it aside with her left while her right arced in at his throat. He spun, taking the blow on his shoulder, and a backhanded chop slammed into her stomach. Ashley fell backward, and he did so as well, opening up the distance between them.

He sent a roundhouse kick directly into her temple that sent her back to the alley floor, dazed and insensate.

"Got more iron in you than your sister, I suppose," Early muttered, and she tried pushing herself up to her feet. A wave of dizziness sent her flopping back down to the alley floor.

"Hey, now what's happenin'?"

Early glanced up, as did Ashley, and they both saw the battered drunk from the bar lurching down the alley, a bottle in hand.

"I heard a scuffle?" the man asked, and then glanced down at the sprawled soldier. "The hell's goin' on here?"

"You're gonna want to leave right now," Early growled, and that friendly tone he'd been speaking to her in was replaced by solid ice. "This ain't none of your concern."

"Like hell," muttered the drunk, tossing the bottle aside and scowling at the bounty hunter as he lurched forward. "You gonna leave that girl alone or I'll make you."

Early sighed, holstering his pistol, but that didn't change any of the fear Ashley was feeling as she watched the bounty hunter stalk toward the drunk. She wasn't afraid for herself, but rather for the man who was walking into something he had no idea how to handle. She tried rising, fighting against the dizziness that was keeping her down.

"Last chance to go on in peace," Early offered.

"Piss off," the drunk slurred, staggering toward him. Early sighed again, and waited for the drunk to make his first swing. It was a wild, uncontrolled haymaker, that Early easily twisted around, and he stepped in behind it with a quick jab at the drunk's throat-

_thudwhapchurkthudcrunch_

-and the drunk blocked, his haymaker arm lanced up in a counter-chop at Early's throat, followed his other hand grabbing the bounty hunter by the neck, his leg rising in a vicious knee, and then a spinning slam that dashed Early's head against the alley wall.

In the span of a single second.

_"Go se," _she breathed, and then the drunk was leaping over Early's sprawled form, looming over the soldier and extending a hand in a series of very sober motions.

"Come on," he hissed, and helped her stand up. She staggered to her feet, and he hurried her out of the alley past the stunned Early.

"Who the hell are you?" she asked.

"Long story," he said, and then chuckled. "Let's complete that cliché with an overly mysterious nickname. You can call me Echo."

* * *

_"One-Three-Seven is still on the loose."_

_The old officer in the wheelchair peered across the room at the doctor, who sat quietly on the far side of the little table. He looked back at her, noting the myriad new lines across her face that had developed over the last two years._

_"Yes," he said, after a moment._

_"And thus far, seven Blanks are lost," she continued. "And I-One-One-Nine is loose. As are K-One-Two-Five. And I-One-Zero-Three." She paused, taking a sip from the tea at hand. "Four escapes. Six dead agents that you cannot replace. And we lost an Operative."_

_"One-Three-Seven killed an Operative?" the doctor asked, to which the woman shook her head._

_"Worse, we suspect. Turned. Unstable animals, Operatives." She took another sip of her tea, and gave him a harsh glare. "We care little for the Kinetic or the two Inducers, but we have agents chasing them."_

_"Conventional?" he asked, and she nodded._

_"Fully briefed. They know what they're up against. My concern is One-Three-Seven. After the mass-suicide two months ago when the Miranda Wave hit, the available Empath pool has dried up."_

_"We still have several working candidates, two of whom are almost lucid," the doctor said quickly, trying to at least regain equality in the conversation before it became a flurry of beratement. "But-"_

_"None of them have One-Three-Seven's potential," she cut in. "And she is still incomplete. I want her back and I want to see how far the augmentation can go. Tests have already shown continental-level awareness using enhancers. I want it raised to global."_

_"We can do that, if we bring her back in," mused the doctor. "And we have an idea." He handed her a dossier, and she looked through it._

_"She kills four Blanks, each in pairs, and you recommend sending a single one instead?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. She knew the doctor wasn't stupid. "What makes this one so special?"_

_"Keep reading."_

_She did, and the frown slowly faded._

_"Exceptional marks in close quarters combat, high marks in counterintelligence and espionage, excellent marks in operational planning," she mused, and then flipped the page. "And . . . oh. Ah. I see." She looked up, a slight smile creased her face. "Taking the devious tack, here, are we?"_

_"Quite," he replied, and she nodded._

_"Very well," she said. "Deploy this Blank immediately. But if he fails, there will be repercussions, understood?"_

_"Absolutely."_

_"Good. Get it done."_

* * *

She'd started to recover within a few minutes of their escape from the alley, and they paused in an open plaza in the middle of the docks, within sight of a small Alliance police station.

"Thanks," Ashley said, sitting down at the bench. She looked up at Echo, who crouched beside her, peering into her face and frowning.

"Looks ugly," he murmured, but she shook her head.

"I'll live," she replied. "Why'd you save my ass back there?"

"Same reason I suspect that bastard back there was beating on you," he replied. "Looking for info on _Serenity_."

"Everyone seems to be on this Reynolds guy's ass," she muttered, and he shrugged.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, already," she muttered, waving him away, and he reluctantly stood up.

"You got a place to stay? A flat or a hotel or someplace I can take you?"

"No, took a passenger boat here from Persephone so I could talk with Morris," she said. "Soon as he gave me a lead I was going to find a place and then leave on the next ship out."

"Not much of a plan," he mused.

"Didn't plan it too much, I agree," she replied.

"I've got a ship," he offered, shrugging. "Got a few passenger bunks, if you're interested." She frowned, shaking her head.

"Just because you saved my ass doesn't mean I'm gonna let you take me home," she said. "Gotta at least buy me dinner, or a few beers, first."

"Fair enough," he replied. "We're both after the same thing, though. I'll at least let you stay there overnight, only decent thing I can offer you."

"Yeah, and that bastard will jump me the second I set foot off your boat," she grumbled. She leaned back on the bench, rubbing her head and mulling over the offer for a few minutes.

"Why do you want _Serenity_?" she asked. "You got a problem with Reynolds?"

"No," he said, shaking his head. "My interest is in a missing person. I think they might be able to help me with finding her."

"Huh, same reason I'm after them," she said.

"You're looking for your sister," Echo said, and she grunted.

"Yeah," she muttered.

"And you dug around in dives looking for clues about _Serenity_ to find her," he mused, and she grunted. "Why didn't you just call her?"

"If I could, I would," she replied, glaring at him like he was a moron. "I don't know if she even has a Cortex address, and if Reynolds had anything to do with my sister's disappearance, I'm not going to wave him."

"Fair enough," Echo replied, and Ashley rose to her feet.

"Look, you got a bunk for me," she said, "I guess I'll stay. No guarantee I'll stick around for when you leave, though."

"Good call," he said, and they started off through the crowds, doubling back toward the docks. They both kept their eyes open and their heads on a swivel, watching to see if Early had recovered and was trailing them. None of them spotted the bounty hunter, and within half an hour they'd pushed through the docks to a series of small spaceport landing pads, screened off from the rest by security checkpoints, which Echo passed through with no trouble.

"You got money or clearance?" she asked, and he shrugged.

"Both."

They continued on, until they found the pad that Echo's ship was berthed at. They passed through the outer doors into the landing area, and found a small, narrow, blade-like vessel painted a dark blue parked on the pad. It was only about thirty meters long from back to front, and most of the space was taken up by the cargo bay and the engines.

"So, this is your ship?" she asked as they walked up the ramp onto the cramped little vessel. The bay was dominated by a sealed, flight-capable hovercar, and on either side were nice, neat stacks of crates. The whole room was clean, with smooth metal paneling and shiny grating on the floors. It was too low for a catwalk.

"No much to look at," Echo replied, stepping around the vehicle. "I've got a couple of spare cabins on the second deck, you can take whichever one you choose."

"Right, but don't expect me to stay," she murmured, and he glanced back at her. "I never said I was going to come along with you just because you bailed me out back there."

"Nonsense," he said. "You're coming along with me because I can help you find your sister."

"And how do you know about Kaylee being connected with _Serenity_?" Ashley demanded.

"I've had my eye on _Serenity_ for some time," he replied, walking around the hovercar and toward the rear bay doors. She hurried to keep up. "And I've been backtracking her crew and activities. I have no doubt they're involved with your sister's disappearance after Persephone."

"How long have you been tailing me?" she asked, an he paused at the stairway running up to the bridge level.

"A while," he admitted. "I've been on _Serenity_ ever since that incident at Persephone. Had a hit on one of her passengers there, and been following leads ever since."

"You got news of my discharge and tracked me down?" she asked, and he nodded, before starting up the stairs. She followed him up onto the bridge. "You're not helping here with the whole trust issue," she called as she followed him.

"I'm just being honest," he replied. "The trail ran cold. You were my only lead." He stepped into the bridge, a small, spartan room with only two chairs and an economy of buttons. He sat down behind the pilot's chair, and the reason for that economy sprang to life: a holographic control display.

"Anything else?" she asked, and he turned around in the chair to face her.

"As I said, you're my only lead," he continued. "I've got a ship, and you've already seen I have money and enough Alliance authorization to bypass most security checkpoints with no fuss. It wouldn't be dumb to help each other out."

She stared back at him for several long seconds, considering her next words.

"Heard they were on Silverhold," Ashley finally offered.

"Silverhold?" Echo mused, frowning, and then he nodded. "Yes. I think I may know why."

"What do you mean?" she asked, eyebrows furrowing in suspicion.

"I know of this crew and their habits," Echo said quickly, annoyed at himself. "One of them may have sought out a particular man I know of on that planet. Perhaps we can get more information from him, or barring that, find out what they were up to out there."

He turned back to the console, and started manipulating the holo-controls.

"You should get some rest. There's an auto-med drone at the rear of the crew section, in the infirmary. It should take care of your head wound."

"Right," Ashley sighed, nodding, and started off toward the passenger section. Echo settled back into the pilot's chair, waiting until he knew she was gone. Then, he dug into his pocket. A moment later, he pulled out a pict-capture he'd taken nearly two years ago.

Her face was dull and pale, her dark hair limp and unkempt, but there was a rarity there, captured and displayed in one of the few moments of sanity she'd had during her ordeals:

She was smiling.

He stared at her picture for a long time, a smile of his own creeping over his face, and after a while, he sighed. He checked the clock by his pilot's console, and nodded. Early should have recovered by now and have picked up the trail leading back to his ship. He'd give him another half-hour to catch up before they'd take off. The bounty hunter would follow them, just like the good bloodhound he was.

And soon, they would all find _Serenity_.

"I'm coming. I'll find you," Sergeant John Garis whispered, looking again at her picture, before putting it away and starting the pre-takeoff checklist.

He'd find her soon, and then bring her home, and things would be better.

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**Why yes, that is fecal matter hurtling toward the rotationary cooling device.

Also, in my head, Morris' voice was provided by **BRIAN BLESSED.**

Until next chapter . . . .


	48. Third Interlude

_**Third Interlude: Fifth Man**_

_"Hey, Doc. What do you know about dogs?"_

Simon didn't know the name of the moon they were on. It was just a backwater they were stopping at for a layover while they did some quiet work in the Kaladesa system, as far from the Core as possible. He did know that the sky here on this moon was a pretty shade of vibrant blue, and that like everywhere else on the rim, there were springy, young forests only a couple centuries old at most.

The air was clear and fresh and new, tinged with that background scent every world got as its atmosphere was processed and recreated. The air itself was filled with all the myriad insect life of a rim planet, along with the pollens of this moon's spring cycle, and the falling spring flower petals that were whipped about by the wind and cast through the air from the trees and fields. There were even the little white seeds of some species of dandelion, wafting through the breeze on white tufts of softness.

Also, there were bullets. There were quite a few bullets in the air on this pretty spring/summer day.

"_Tyen-sah duh ching-wah tsao duh shee-niou huh choo-shung tza-jiao duh tzang-huo!_"

The air was also filled with curse words. They didn't make a whole lot of sense, or maybe the people the Captain was yelling at were supposed to be open-minded by enjoying fornication with both livestock _and_ amphibians.

Or maybe Mal was just so angry he was getting shot at over a box of puppies that he stopped caring about his curses being comprehensible.

The mule screamed along through the trees, Shepherd Book at the helm, while bullets zipped and whipped overhead. The hovercraft, as brand-new as such things got on the Rim, maneuvered among the trees as they shot through the valley forest, heading for the town where Serenity was berthed. In the rear two seats, Mal and Zoë were trading bullets with their pursuers. Simon, meanwhile, was cradling the box of puppies in the seat beside Book, the little dogs whining and barking quietly at the violent ride.

"They're gaining," Zoë reported her voice as calm and iron-hard as ever, while she ducked behind the rear seat and reloaded her shotgun.

"They're always gaining," Mal muttered as he fired a couple more rounds from his pistol.

"How are they gaining?" Simon asked. "We're in a hovercraft, they're-"

A tree about a hundred meters behind them made a sound suspiciously like a human body being chucked into an engine, and a massive four-wheeled transport barreled right over it. The wheels were huge, at least three meters tall, and were mounted around an engine that could have been equipped on most atmospheric fighters. The cab, by comparison, seemed more like an afterthought, a small thing perched atop the engine that held a bed full of angry and armed thugs with a tall, swarthy-looking man with long black hair and beard commanding them. The gigantic vehicle seemed to be nothing but wheels and engine and fury and hunger, and it closed in on the mule like it was sitting still.

"Theirs is bigger," Mal muttered, his tone managing to be both dark and annoyed.

* * *

Jayne grumbled, looking up at the sky through his sunglasses. The scents and sounds of the nearby town were all around him: the laughter of kids, the murmur of voices and the ringing of brass bells from livestock, mixed in with what smelled exactly like fresh bread. Somewhere, he could hear the strains of an old guitar plinking along, and he felt a powerful urge to go find his own and start it up.

Instead, he lingered outside the big general store and watched the town. It was a decent-sized place, about five hundred folks, with that funny mix one got of wooden homes next to houses what looked like someone had set up a big frozen dinner pack, and then one got the pre-fabricated domes made of shiny, smooth plastic. That was likely where the law, the rich folks, and the other bits of Alliance presence were to be found.

Jayne was uncomfortable for precisely that reason, because he was standing outside one such building. It wasn't the sheriff's office - that one was built out of wood like all the rest, which meant the law was likely on the level out here, and unlikely to bother them. Jayne was uncomfortable here because this place was the home of the local clinic. And because the Alliance had tight control over medical supplies on this moon, which meant that out here, one had to go to the clinic to buy them.

That was a complication that meant Doc couldn't rightly go inside. It wasn't much of a risk, but it was too high by Mal's estimate, so instead, the Captain had asked Inara to get what they needed. That would have been fine, except Mal had to skip off with Zoë and the Doc - and Book had volunteered to help - to go get something or other. So Mal had appointed Jayne to be Inara's escort around town, rightly not trusting these parts.

That was when the fun began, because then Kaylee and River had decided to go shopping.

Now Jayne was stuck watching the three girlfolk go shopping around town, making sure River didn't do anything loopy and keeping all the young menfolk from harassing them. And then it turned out that all three women were talking about something out of earshot, and then Kaylee and Inara had gone into the clinic together, leaving Jayne standing outside with River. He was leaning on the wooden railing of the nearby saloon, wishing he could go inside for a drink, and she was sitting on the railing, booted feet waving idly in the air as she soaked up some good, relaxing dirtside time.

She hadn't said anything. He hadn't either. It was a pleasant little silence between the two of them. No gunfire, no craziness, no blood and guts and screaming.

"Jayne," River suddenly said.

_Gorram_ girl.

"Yah?" he asked, feeling too laconic to say it proper.

"Where did you get Boo?"

He frowned, and glanced down at the LeMat on his waist, holstered snug and secure. That one had a long story, but mostly in terms of where he'd used it.

"Got it from a gun dealer on Boros," he said. "'Bout twelve years back. Legit."

She nodded, and started humming, and the silence settled back down while Kaylee and Inara took their sweet time getting the stuff.

"Where did you get Binky?" River asked a few moments later. He grunted, biting back his annoyance. The knife was on his other hip, opposite Boo.

"My Pappy gave it to me when I was thirteen," he said. "Real man's knife, he called it." He didn't say anything more, even though he knew the girl wanted a more satisfying story for him to tell. More silence passed, but this time, he was ready for her to break it.

"Where did you get Vera?"

Okay. He'd _thought_ he'd been ready for her to speak up. He hadn't been ready for _that_ question.

"Long story," he said quickly.

"Six men came to kill me one time," she murmured, and he glanced at her. She spoke in a downright unsettling approximation of his voice. "Best of 'em carried this."

"You stop that. It's disturbing."

She giggled, and then went silent, and this time, she stayed that way. Good. He didn't want to talk about how he'd gotten Vera. Story he'd told Mal was as close as he'd ever gotten to telling anyone about that.

_Gorram_ girl.

* * *

A bullet spanged off the rear of the mule, making Mal jerk backward with a curse. He snapped up his pistol and fired another shot, hitting the hood of the truck and doing only slightly more to slow it down than a fly splattering itself on the windshield.

Return fire nearly took his head off, and he ducked back behind cover. The puppies continued barking and whining while Book sent the mule slaloming between trees that had taken a century of terraforming to grow and a single second under monstrous wheels to crush.

"Sir." Zoë said, firing a shot blindly over the rear of the mule. It wouldn't do much good, but their weapons weren't hurting their pursuers much in the first place. "We're about three kilometers from the landing zone."

"Yeah, I figured," Mal said. He glanced to the precious cargo, which Simon kept cradled next to the short-barreled shotgun he'd brought along. The doctor wasn't much of one for weapons, but he'd proven himself plenty already. Still, if Simon needed to use his weapon, they were in serious trouble.

Well, more serious than now.

"We shouldn't take much longer to get back to _Serenity_," Mal said, considering the situation, and especially the fact that he hadn't brought his radio along with him. He brought guns enough for all four of them, but _noooo_, this was going to be an easy job, no need for radios in case he needed to bring _Serenity_ in for a hard and fast pickup.

"Terrain clears and evens out down in the valley," Zoë pointed out. "They'll gain on us faster if we take the straight route to the ship."

"Ah . . . crap," Mal growled, unable to think of a good curse in Chinese. He looked around the forest, and tried to remember what the terrain had looked like when they'd been flying over the valley. The terrain was bumpy and meaner south, past the town, with some slopes and ridges that they might be able to maneuver the monster behind them into slipping over. The bad part of that plan was that it would take them away from the ship for a while, and worse still they'd have to cut through the town to get there. Someone could get hurt.

So, decision time. The folks in that town, or three of his crew?

The decision was always the same.

"Shepard, take us into town, fast as you can," Mal ordered. "Try not to kill anyone!"

To his credit, he swerved immediately, shifting toward the town below. Belatedly, Mal remembered that some of the others were in town, and hoped that they'd hear the trouble coming and stay out of the way.

"I try to do a little pro bono work," he muttered as they screamed toward the town. "Get some puppies, help some kids, do a nice thing." He paused, scowling, and stood up, pistol rising.

"And! I still! Get! _Gorram_! Shot at!"

Each exclamation point was aided by a shot from his pistol.

It did well to hide the anger he was feeling at himself, nearly as much as he was feeling at their pursuers.

* * *

"This town is noisy," River murmured, legs still waving in the air, and Jayne grunted, noting a heavy engine somewhere in the distance. Probably some kind of heavy hauler.

"Eh, not as bad as some places," he replied.

"Not here," she muttered. "Noise is coming closer."

Jayne frowned, and cocked his head to the side, listening intently. Though no one had really bothered him on it, he'd never personally lived it down that time he'd misheard the fight between Doc and Early. He made sure to sort through the noise of the town all around them to see if he could pick out the distinctive noise of trouble.

"You are not a radar dish," she muttered, watching him.

"And you're crazy, so we're square," he muttered back. "Quiet now."

A second later, the door to the clinic opened, and Kaylee and Inara emerged with a couple bags of medical supplies, chatting away, the mechanic clad in coveralls with her blue jacket on, and Inara wearing one of her less flashy dresses. River immediately slid down off the railing and bounced toward them. The rumble of the distant engine grew louder.

Jayne watched them, feeling a bit better now that he had all the girlfolk under his eye again. He didn't like being saddled with being a big mean guard, but he took the job seriously, especially with those three involved.

River began asking a few quiet questions, and the voices hushed into quiet, sneaky tones, which made Jayne scowl in annoyance. Not that he wanted to know much about whatever it was the girls were talking about, but he was still curious. He edged closer, and the tones got even quieter, almost conspiratorial.

River stopped, looked up, and blinked back up at him.

"That is too many syllables for you," she said, and then went back to being quiet.

"Hey!" he growled. "Just 'cause I don't know some fancy words don't mean I don't know others!"

Inara and Kaylee looked up at Jayne, surprised by his sudden outburst, but a mumble from River relaxed them, barely audible over the rumbling in the background.

Then her arms shot up and grabbed both of the women, while Jayne snapped out his revolver at almost the exact same moment. He'd heard it, she'd felt it.

A peal of gunfire resounded in the air as the rumble of approaching engines rose up. He listened intently, and now that he was focusing on the noise, he put it at less than a hundred meters off, with at least three different kinds of weapons being fired.

How the hell had he missed that? Too intent on the _gorram_ girl to . . . .

"Ya'll get down!" he yelled, ducking behind the corner of the shop. He glanced back to check on the girlfolk, to see they'd done the same. Kaylee and Inara had been through too many gunfights to not go for cover at first chance.

And for good reason: five seconds later, a hovercraft whipped around a corner down the street – a familiar-looking hovercraft, with a familiar-looking moron with a familiar-looking brown coat waving out behind him as he shot at something chasing them.

A second later, a gigantic four-wheeled monster of a vehicle came around the corner, looking for all the world like a building made out of tires. The few people still outside dove for cover, some screaming, while the mule shot down the road, the glacier-on-wheels chasing them.

"GET OUT OF THE _WAAAAAAY_!" Mal was screaming at the people in the road as they flew past, firing his pistol at the mountain of wheels. Jayne wasn't sure if he or anyone else on the mule – Doc, Zoë, and Book, from what he saw – had seen him.

The enormous vehicular mammoth roared past, and Jayne looked up at the men in the cab and bed of the monster.

He froze.

"_Ta ma de_," he breathed. He only saw the face for a heartbeat, but that was all he needed.

He snapped up his revolver and unloaded. In the roar of the passing monster's engines, he couldn't even hear the bark of his weapon, and it didn't look like he did any damage. In fact, it wasn't likely the men in the back of the huge vehicle even knew he was there.

Then they were past, and Jayne was fumbling for a speedloader for the revolver, grunting and cursing as he did so.

He knew that face. He knew it all too well. And if that _hun dan_ was after Mal and the others . . . .

"We gotta get after them!" Jayne yelled, head swiveling as he hunted around the street for a vehicle. Gorram hick town like this only had horses, at best, maybe a couple all-terrain trucks. Behind him, he heard River say something quickly to Kaylee and Inara, and then she ran past him, slapping him on the shoulder. He turned to follow her, and she ran around a corner. Grumbling, he chased after her, keeping his eyes on the escaping monster chasing his crew.

As he came around the corner, he saw what River had picked out: a local sitting on an ATV, wearing a hideous, floppy brown hat that would have earned him a right hook if he'd inflicted it on a bar Jayne had been drinking in. The man had apparently been just as surprised as everyone else at what had just screamed past, and was watching in the direction Mal had fled.

"Hello!" River yelled, waving at the man in the ugly hat. He looked up as she ran toward him, Jayne right behind her.

"Yes, little lady?" the man asked, pulling his eyes away from what he'd just seen and fixing on her.

"We require your vehicle," she said as she reached him. He frowned, shaking his head.

"What?" the man said. "No, sorry girl, I can't just give-"

"Please?" River said, putting on her best pouty puppy-dog face. The man hesitated for a few moments.

"No, sorry, little miss," he said, and started to rev the vehicle up. "I can't-"

_FWHUNK!_

-and then an arm as wide around as her head came down onto the man's face, and he was sent toppling to the dirt, hat flying away. Jayne stepped around the girl and onto the ATV.

"_Jay_ne," she hissed, reprovingly, as he clambered onto the bike.

"He was crowdin' me," Jayne offered, words completely lacking in apology, and he started the vehicle up. "Wasn't gonna have time for your pretty girl routine, anyhow." She snorted, an oddly Jayne-like noise, and started to climb onto the bike. He warded her away with one immense arm.

"No room," he said. "Watch Kaylee and 'Nara."

"You'll need help," River protested. He frowned, and shook his head.

"I ain't needin' no help," Jayne growled. "Ain't room anyhow, and Mal needs backup. Get 'em back to the ship safe and tell Wash. Need him airborne."

She hesitated for a moment, and he saw the machinery working behind her eyes, but then something clicked inside that addled head of hers, and she nodded.

He knew that look. It was a look that said she understood.

"Please do not die," she asked, and he shrugged, revving up the engine.

"All gotta die sometime," he said, and before he could contemplate the morbidity of that sentence – or how pretentious that last line of thought was – he shot off, giving the girl just enough warning to back up away from the dust cloud.

He shot around the corner of the street, past Inara and Kaylee, who River was running toward, and he started dragging Boo out of its holster. She knew more about why he was doing this than he was letting on.

_Gorram_ girl.

* * *

They screamed through town without killing anybody, which was a blessing, as far as Mal could tell, but now they were hitting open terrain with a bigger and much faster vehicle chasing after them. Gunfire continued to chase them, directed by the angry Mongol-looking fellow in the back of the truck.

Mal kept firing, though he knew he was running dangerously low on ammunition, and the bullets weren't doing much. Zoë's gunfire was even more limited and sporadic; unlike Mal, her lever-action rifle didn't fit many shells and they were heavy, so she didn't carry as much.

He glanced back toward Simon and Book to check on them. Book was still driving with that unnerving calm he had in complicated situations, while Simon was hunched down low in his seat. Sure, the Doctor had survived a lot of hairy situations, but he still wasn't a trained fighter like the others in the mule. Another reason mal saw to work on that cross-training problem.

A round cut past his head, grazing his scalp, and Mal jerked back behind cover.

Focus. Deal with the angry men trying to kill them first. Then worry about the job and the crew's long-term well-being.

"Beagles," Mal muttered as they careened along. Boulders flew past as they started to hit the bumpy part of this route, and the mule began to swerve around the obstacles, Book weaving the hovercraft with admirable skill.

Behind them, the wheeled mountain continued straight on, course unchanging, and it rolled clean over one of the boulders, shocks and wheels bouncing a bit as it passed over the offending rock but otherwise unperturbed.

"Sir, that may have been a bad idea," Zoë murmured, and a curse from Mal told her that he agreed.

They fired another few blasts at their pursuers, who were now gaining on them, but return fire was intensifying. Mal tried to pick out a shot on the leader of the gaggle of puppy-craving banditry, and almost got a bead on him when the mule juked sideways around a particularly painful-looking boulder, tossing Mal down into the backseat.

"Hey!" he protested, clambering back up onto his feet. A round spanged off the railing next to his hand, and he jerked it away with a yelp, and then emptied the rest of his pistol's cartridge. He frantically reloaded, but as he brought the pistol up to bear, he spotted something else.

A burly man, upon an ATV, bouncing along behind the massive truck.

"Zoë, are my eyes fibbing to me?" he asked.

"Unless you're seeing something other than Jayne back there," she muttered.

"What the hell is he doing?" Mal whispered, more to himself than to the others, for behind the mobile cliff face that was their pursuer, was a bouncing ATV with Jayne Cobb perched upon it.

Mal ducked back behind cover, and looked ahead. The path ahead split about five hundred meters ahead, with a high ridge rising over a lower, smoother path running down the side of the valley.

"Preacher, take the low road!" Mal yelled, and prayed to the dear and fluffy Lord that Jayne would capitalize on the situation.

* * *

Jayne was glad he'd worn his sunglasses today, as he closed in behind the truck. The monster of a vehicle was throwing up a monster of a dust cloud, mixed with bits of debris, and the only thing that kept his vision clear was the pair of sunglasses on his head.

From behind the truck, he counted at least four thug-ish sorts in the rear bed of the truck, along with the Mongol-looking fellow that Jayne was very certain he recognized. So, five bad guys minimum, not counting anyone in the cab of the giant wheeled avalanche. He counted two rifles, a shotgun, and a few pistols, which meant he was badly overmatched in terms of raw firepower. On the other hand, he had surprise, and he was a hell of a lot better. He was Jayne Cobb, after all.

One hand held onto the handlebars of the ATV, keeping the accelerator held down, while the other fumbled for Boo. He drew the LeMat, raising it up toward the target ahead of him, and he cursed as the bouncing, uneven terrain threw his aim this way and that. Why the hell was Mal driving through this damn terrain?

He fired two quick shots through the dust and debris raining down from the monster's wheels, but neither round got anywhere near where he was aiming. It didn't even look like they'd noticed him. Jayne snarled, lowering the revolver, and knew he would need to get a better angle. From here, with the rocky terrain and the low angle, he couldn't get a good shot at the enemy.

He saw the solution up ahead as Mal's vehicle swerved along a split in the route, heading down a path that ran below a high ridge. The monster rolled right down after them, not taking the high road to their left, which would give anyone using it a good shot down at the pursuers.

Jayne swerved out of the dust cloud behind the mobile mountain, and shot up the path that led to the ridge. Doing so cost him precious seconds, he knew, as he jumped and bucked his way up to the top of the ridge and continued chasing the bandits trying to kill his crew.

Long seconds passed as he shot over the top of the ridge, which was strewn with more boulders and uneven, rocky protrusions left by the millions of years the planet had not spent terraformed. He juked around the obstacles, keeping close to the cliff's edge and an eye on the monster truck below.

Finally, Jayne had a clear line of fire on the men in the monster's bed, the vehicle about twenty meters ahead and a few below to his right. He drew Boo again and leveled the revolver at the men in the back, trying to set his sights on the Mongol bossing them around.

He squeezed the trigger, and Boo leapt up in his free hand. He emptied the revolver, putting four rounds into the truck's bed, and he saw one of the men in the back jerk and fall aside. The roar of the truck's engine drowned out any noises he might have made, but the whizzing and displaced air of a passing bullet was unmistakable, as was the sound of rounds impacting against the metal bed and skipping about as they ricocheted.

The men in the truck ducked for cover, with their leader spinning toward the cliff face, the only logical place where the shots could have come from. He looked up, eyes hunting, and he spotted Jayne as the mercenary swerved around another boulder, shaking the casings out of Boo's cylinders. Just as Jayne dug a speedloader out of his coat and started to load the revolver, he glanced up and caught the Mongol's eyes.

Recognition flashed there.

He started yelling and jabbing his free arm at Jayne, while shouldering his rifle with the other. A couple seconds later every gun in the truck was swinging up his way. Jayne swerved away, putting the cliff face between himself and the truck, while a torrent of gunfire ripped toward him.

Okay, that plan didn't work out so well. They were still chasing Mal and the others, only now they were aware that he was there – and very specifically, they were aware that _he,_ _Jayne Cobb_, was there.

He didn't have much time before that big truck managed to run down the mule, and then Mal and the others would be dead right quick, if they were lucky. Time to get either smart, or extra dumb.

Jayne backed off until he was completely out sight. There was a steep but navigable path down the side of the ridge up ahead, and Jayne let the truck get a bit further on ahead before he started down the side of the rock face, once he was sure they couldn't see him.

As soon as he got back down the side of the cliff and was back in the dust cloud behind the truck, Jayne laid on the gas and shot up behind the monster, hoping they were keeping their eyes on the cliff face and not behind them.

Because he was about to do something either real heroic, or really stupid.

* * *

For Hoban Washburne, the day had been nice and quiet, with _Serenity's_ engines powered down to planet-safe levels. In the still, peaceful warmth of an uneventful afternoon, he'd settled into his pilot's chair for a nice, long, gummy-mouth-generating nap.

That ended when someone smacked him in the nose.

"Owgafawhat!" he exclaimed, jerked and grabbing his nose. Beside him, River was scrambling into the copilot's chair, and he could hear Inara and Kaylee talking behind him.

"What was that for?" he asked, mind whirling, while River's hands played over the controls.

"The others are in trouble," she explained. "We must be airborne."

"Uh, wha?" he asked, mind still shifting gears from happy-sleepiness to oh-my-god-we're-all-going-to-die mode. River glanced to him, even as his hands began automatically working the controls on his side, working of their own accord.

"Fly, you fool!" she hissed, throwing a plastic palm tree at him, which he deflected with a forearm. He grunted, giving her his best annoyed glare as he started the ship up.

"Don't go quoting Tolkien at me," he warned. "I have an entire library of bad fantasy movie quotes I can throw right back at you."

"Please," Inara interjected, in a tone that added the word _"children"_ without having to speak it, "Can we hurry and save them?"

"We'll be up in the sky in just a moment," Wash said, flicking the switches by his head, and glanced to River. "Just hoping we get there in time."

"We will," River said, determined, and added to herself where no one could hear, "He promised me he wouldn't get himself killed."

* * *

_Aw hell, I'm about to get myself kilt,_ Jayne realized halfway between the point where he jumped off a moving vehicle and grabbed another with his bare hands.

Jayne had seen more than one action-vid where the hero jumped from a moving car onto another one, and he'd always sneered at how impossible that sort of thing was. He'd tried it once when he was fifteen, and was laid up for two months in traction as a result. Getting from a moving vehicle to another when they were both the same size and traveling at the same speed and on flat terrain was hard enough.

Jayne was on an ATV, trying to board a massive moving truck, on rough terrain that was making him bounce about so hard he was getting worried about his potential to sire heirs. Worse still, the ATV demanded he have a hand on the handlebars to keep it going straight, since the designers were inconsiderate of the needs of vehicle–leaping mercenaries. Even worse still, the only spot he could really get a good grip on the truck was high enough up that Jayne had to stand up in the seat of the ATV to actually grab it.

Thus, he was standing up on a vehicle designed to be driven while seated, bouncing around wildly, one arm flailing as it tried to get a grip on an equally bouncing vehicle that was swerving back and forth in front of him, while his other hand held onto the handlebars lest the ATV go flying out underneath him and turn him into a Jayne-flavored smear across the landscape.

"_Gorram_ this is stupid _gorram_ this is stupid _gorram_ this is stupid," he kept repeating, and lunged upward, getting a hand on the rear bumper of the wheeled battleship, and he released the handlebars while kicking off the ATV. It instantly spun out of control, the rear bouncing up and hitting his legs, knocking them sideways.

His boots skipped off the dirt once, and he was snapped about like a pennant in the wind, with only his massive strength keeping him from being torn loose. Jayne snarled, cursed enough to make his momma proud, and flex his arms, hauling himself upward. He coiled his legs to keep them from smashing into any rocks or hitting the dirt again, and began to climb hand over hand up the rear of the monster.

Jayne hauled himself up on the back of the bed, planted his boots against the backside of the truck, and drew Boo with his right hand. He checked the revolver to make sure it was loaded, and peeked over the back of the bed. Four goons, one bearded pile of ugly commanding them, and a dead body sprawled in the back of the truck.

Time for some thrilling heroics.

The next few seconds were all a slow-motion blur as his adrenaline peaked. He went over the top, pistol leading, and shot the first man in the back, middle of his spine. The round sent him flopping, paralyzing him from the midsection down and probably killing him with splinters of his own vertebrae. The remaining men began to turn, and he put a round through the second goon's neck, tearing away his throat. The third raised a shotgun and leveled it at Jayne, but the mercenary's next shot took him in the shoulder, throwing off his aim and sending the blast lancing over his shoulder. The fourth round took the fourth man in the thigh, dropping him to one knee.

Then the third thug dropped his shotgun and shoulder-tackled Jayne, throwing him back against the bed of the truck, and grabbed the mercenary's gun hand with his own good arm. Jayne's left arm flew up, hand balling into a fist, and smashed into the thug's wounded shoulder, and the man jerked in agony from the impact, right before Jayne twisted and hooked his left hand under the man's armpit. He spun and used his foe's momentum to hurl him over the back of the truck.

Something hard, heavy, and likely metal smashed into the middle of Jayne's back, and he fell forward against the bed of the truck. He spun, trying to jab out with Boo and at least force his foe off him, but an arm wrapped around his extending gun hand and pinned it against the side of his attacker's body.

It was the Mongol-looking bastard whose name Jayne had never gotten. The man grinned at him, exposing yellowed teeth, and smashed his forehead into Jayne's nose. The impact sent him stumbling backward, and Jayne dropped Boo into the bed of the truck.

"Jayne Cobb," yelled the ugly bastard over the engine as he towered over the mercenary, pointing a rifle down at his head. "I never thought I'd see you again. How's Andy's old rifle treating you?"

"Hell," Jayne muttered, not able to form anything more articulate with his head swimming like that. More importantly, though, the words the man spoke were bringing a different clarity to Jayne's mind.

_Red._

"You know Konstantin's still alive," the Mongol grunted. "Still looking to settle that score he had with you. Maybe I should bring you over to him, for old-time's sakes. Sure he'd-"

Jayne Cobb kicked the Mongol in the danglies.

"Talk too _gorram_ much," Jayne muttered as the bearded, ugly sonovabitch stumbled backward, grunting in surprise. He scooped up Boo and pointed it at the man's head.

The thug who got shot in the leg rose, leveling a pistol at Jayne, and the mercenary shifted aim, putting the fifth round into the man's chest. The Mongol leapt up at Jayne, snarling and swinging his weapon like a club, and they smashed back against the bed of the truck. Apparently, getting kicked in the eggshells didn't do much more than piss him off. The Mongol smashed the rifle down over Jayne's head, which he barely managed to roll with to keep it from staving in his forehead.

Boo came crashing down in a pistol-whip at the Mongol's head, but he ducked backward, shoving the pistol aside with his free arm. Jayne managed to grab the man's rifle with his own free hand and angle it sideways and away from his vitals. The Mongol kept spitting and cursing as he wrenched his arm around, trying to get the weapon up to shoot Jayne, and the mercenary sidestepped, turning to his left.

Then Jayne grinned suddenly, which made the Mongol pause for a heartbeat.

Boo, which was held in Jayne's right hand, was pointing toward the cab of the truck. Or more specifically, toward the driver.

The sixth round plated itself in the middle of the driver's head, and he slumped forward over the wheel. Jayne snapped his head forward into the Mongol's face, returning the favor and breaking his opponent's nose for good measure. As the man toppled backward, Jayne spun and clambered over the back of the truck's bed, just as the vehicle began to turn and swerve out of control.

He dropped off the back of the truck and hit the-

Then he was bouncing a second later, and the ground rushed up to-

He bounced again, and then rolled across the dirt, pain arcing across his body, and Jayne wished for a moment he had blacked out like he had with the last two impacts. He found himself lying facedown in the dirt, still clutching Boo in a death grip. He heard the sound of metal screeching on stone, and managed to wrench his head around to see the truck smash into the cliff face and then bounce off, and go in the opposite direction, toward the steep drop heading down into the valley.

He pushed himself up, ignoring the fact that his whole body was screaming that he needed to stay horizontal, and trudged over to the cliff's edge so he could see. The truck toppled over the side, and started rolling end over end down the slope, sending bits and pieces and men flying every which way.

Jayne stared down the slope, wincing in pain and watching. He kept his eyes locked on the truck until he made out the limp shape of the Mongol-looking man being hurled clear. For a beat he was worried he would need to go down there and finish him off, but the flying body impacted a boulder on the slope headfirst, and the man's head went in a direction that wasn't terribly healthsome.

Well. That was that.

He heard the whine of the mule's engine as it came closer, and turned to face it. The hovercraft pulled up alongside him, the crew looking down at him with expressions that ranged from grateful on Mal's to amazement on Simon's.

A few seconds' silence passed, and he got annoyed.

"Well, ya'll got room for me or not?" he asked. "Sure as shit ain't walkin' back."

"After that trick," Mal said, nodding and speaking in clear appreciation. "I'd walk back for you."

Mal moved aside, and Jayne reached up, hauling himself inside. He heard a yapping sound coming from the box the Doc was holding, and a beagle puppy stuck its head out of the box. The little mutt barked once and then growled at him, and Jayne growled back as he clambered up onto the mule.

"Do you need me to take a look at that?" Simon said, and Jayne grunted.

"I'll live until we get back to the ship," he muttered. Doc was right to be worried, because Jayne was hurting like hell after that fall, but damned if he was going to show it. Just because he appreciated Doc's skills didn't mean he'd let him know he did. Had an image to maintain, after all.

"Who was that?" Book asked as the mule began to fire up, and Jayne grunted. He glanced back down the slope.

"Dead fella, now," Jayne grumbled, closing his eyes, pain making itself evident across his body. In the distance, he could hear _Serenity_ approaching.

Good. He needed a nap and a damned drink. The mule started moving, and one of the puppies whined. That made him open an eye.

"The hell are ya'll doing with them yappers, anyhow?"

* * *

It was late. Or later, he couldn't tell, now that they were back in space, the box of yappers handed over to the folks who wanted them and the not-terribly-good ship _Serenity_ heading out into the Black.

The others were asleep, and but Jayne was awake. He slouched in the dining room – the concept of proper posture never really applied to him – one leg up on the bench with wrappings around it. Doc had done a good job, complete with a shot for the pain that didn't send him face-first to the floor. They'd worked on that trust issue some the last few months, and now it was showing.

He was busy at the moment, cleaning and reassembling his favorite rifles, and he showed extra care and attention to Vera. She'd saved his ass more than a few times, so he treated her like he treated any girl he cared about: he took his time, worked his way inside every corner and groove, checked every inch with steady and methodical care and, when necessary, put some spit and tongue to work. Contrary to what some folks thought of him, he could be very soft and gentle when he felt the need to, and a good woman and good weapon were much the same in that regard.

As he finished reattaching Vera's barrel to the rifle's receiver, he started humming to himself, making a point to completely ignore the presence behind him. A few moments passed, and he could feel the girl getting impatient and annoyed, as clearly as if she were speaking out loud.

"I was being quiet," River finally muttered, tired of being ignored.

Not quiet enough, he thought, and then focused again on a pair of his pistols. What he didn't think on – because he didn't want her picking up on it – was that he'd just barely sensed her, and that was more due to heat proximity warning him someone had been standing behind him for a few minutes, and her very shallow breathing, which he'd only just picked out from the ship's air cyclers.

Girl needed to be deflated a bit, he thought. Not as much of a ninja as she thought she was.

"It is later," she said, and slid past him. She took a seat at the head of the table, where Mal liked to be, and leaned forward. "We have time for unpleasant stories."

Jayne scowled up at her. She had her arms crossed together and was leaning forward on them, hair draping over the table, and looked for all the worlds like an eager little kid – not an adult. He intensified his scowl and went back to cleaning his weapons. She knew – and he knew she knew that _he_ knew she knew – that he wasn't going to start talking about Vera in detail. Hell, Mal knew more than most folks, and that was when he'd had a heart-to-heart with the Captain. Or at least, as heart-to-heart as Jayne and the Captain got back in those days.

"I will start drinking whiskey with you if it will make you talk," she offered, and that made him scowl some more.

"You can't handle it," he muttered. "Makes you start kissin' girlfolk." He then grinned. "Second thought, let's get you some next time we hit planetside."

She glowered at him, but it was more out of amusement than anger. He went back to work, and she sat at the table, watching him as he cared for the rest of his girls, one by one. Her fingers tapped idly, and finally, her hands slithered forward toward Vera.

Jayne dropped his tools and the weapon parts in a flash and grabbed her wrists.

"Off," he snarled, and pushed her arms back. Vera had extreme sentimental value, and he made sure she understood that in his glare. He'd tolerate someone else handling Vera if it was something serious, but he wasn't going to let the _xiao gui_ play around with the rifle.

She understood, from what he saw, and settled back in her seat.

"Are you going to tell me?" she asked.

"No." Blunt and direct was best here. No need to pretty it up.

Besides . . . she'd probably figured it out anyhow.

"Yes," she said, after a few seconds, as if he'd spoken it out loud. "Which one was it?"

"That guy with the ugly mustache," Jayne grumbled, not wanting to talk any more on the issue. He reached down and picked up Vera, cradling the rifle in his hands, and remembering a thousand memories associated with the weapon, including the most potent one.

"Six men came to kill me one time," he murmured. "And after today, only one's still alive."

"Was it revenge?" she asked, and he heard the leading tone in her voice. He glanced back up at her, and saw something working inside those eyes. There was more to that question than what she was saying.

"Not entirely," Jayne muttered. "I knew the man. Knew what he'd do if he caught 'em." He paused, shifting Vera in his hands, and remembered it all very clearly.

River froze, and then shivered, leaning back quickly.

"Does the 'verse a justice to get rid of him," Jayne grumbled, and started gathering his weapons. River closed her eyes and shambled to her feet, and stepped around the table.

He finally managed to be surprised when she wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed tight. Jayne blinked as that unwashed, tangled hair covered his face, and then grunted most unpleasant-like. He put a forearm against her stomach and pushed the crazy girl off him.

"The hell was that for?" he asked as she withdrew from the sudden hug. She ran a hand over her brow, brushing hair out of her face.

"For saving them," she said, and smiled uncertainly. "Thank you. For not dying."

For a single heartbeat, Jayne mulled over what to say, and then settled on the standard-issue gruffness.

"Yeah," he said. "Just doin' what Captain pays me to do, is all."

He could tell she saw right through that by the way her smile shifted to an honest, amused grin, but she didn't press the issue. Instead, River did an odd little curtsey and murmured a goodnight to him, and then drifted out of the room.

Jayne watched her leave, mumbled a few choice words about the insane psychic ninja girl, and gathered up his other girls into his arms. He glanced down at Vera, and remembered that Mongol _hun dan_ and his dirty, yellowed teeth.

Five dead. One left.

He tucked Vera under his arm and headed back for the still quiet of his bunk.

* * *

_**Author's Notes: **_This interlude was mostly intended to get us back to our crew, especially as the last interlude was about characters elsewhere - most of the originals and not our big damn heroes. This interlude was actually originally intended to be the prologue for the next story arc, but it grew into its own entity all by itself and I knew it had to become a seperate, self-contained story. The core concept for this arc was working on some backstory regarding Jayne, and I decided to build off one of Jayne's iconic moments. Sure, Jayne said six men came to kill him one time, but he never said why, where, when, or how many were still alive, and I'm a sucker for expanding on plot threads like that. I actually have a bit of a plot laid out regarding that particular incident, and how it relates to Jayne himself. Of course, since this interlude was Jayne-centric, most of the other characters were relegated to the background, but I plan to have other character-centric interludes later.

There were more than a few references scattered throughout this chapter. I was originally intending to have a complicated Iniana Jones style fight scene on the truck, with Jayne actually getting thrown off and dangling off the side and climbing along the truck's underside, but that was just pushing how far I could go with this particular action scene while not overstretching the plausibility.

Until next chapter . . . .


	49. Charity: Prologue: Apprehension

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_**Charity: Prologue: Apprehension**_

Zoë realized something was wrong when she heard her husband crying.

She was pulled out of the depths of sleep, dragged back into the world of the waking with that familiar gummy feeling in her mouth and eyes. His arms were pulled around her chest, under her breasts but over the swelling belly where their child was growing, but it wasn't the gentle, comfortable embrace he'd often given her in bed. His arm was pulled tight, hugging her against him, and the strength in his grip told her sleep-slurred mind something was off.

Then she heard the sobs, and felt the heat of his skin and face against the back of her head, and she turned over quickly, adrenaline blasting away the cobwebs.

"Wash?" Zoë asked, fighting back the spike of fear running through her with the ease of an old soldier.

Her husband's eyes were closed tight, but he was shivering in spite of the heat rolling off his body. In the dim light, she could see his face was flushed, and he was crying. One of her hands flicked on the lamp beside the bed, while the other shook him roughly.

"Wash!" she yelled, her voice loud and powerful in the tight confines of their bunk. She knew what was happening to him, something that they'd dealt with in their own quiet, private way for years.

Wash opened his eyes, and he jerked, moaning, arm still tight around her. His eyes flicked about for a few seconds, wide and terrified, before realizing where he was. She waited for his mind to catch up, for his grip to relax, and he closed his eyes again while his breath slowed down.

"Bad dreams," she said, embracing him and stroking the side of his jaw. It wasn't a question. "They were only dreams, baby."

"I know," he breathed after a moment, in that weary one of someone who'd been dealing with a long-term problem. He opened his eyes suddenly, and his hand went down to her stomach. "I didn't hurt-"

"No, the little one's safe," she assured him. Her hand ran up the side of his head, and she paused as she could feel the heat from his brow. "Baby, you're burning."

"No, I'm . . . ." he paused, and reached up, touching her hand and then his own forehead. "I am. I'm burning like Jayne."

That was good news. If Wash could make bad jokes, he wasn't that poorly off.

"You have a fever," she said, sitting up, and he let out a noise somewhere between a grunt and a weary groan. He didn't argue with her as she got up and moved over to the bathroom alcove. She opened it up, dug around inside the small medical drawer there, and produced a thermometer.

"Way too high," she said, after taking his temperature. "I'm getting the doctor." Wash mumbled, laying back in bed, tired but refusing to object, especially after the bad dreams he'd had.

Simon had been on watch on the bridge. He didn't know much about flying, but he knew how to read the instruments fairly well, thanks to some on-off training sessions with Wash at Mal's suggestion, and he could hit the ship-wide intercom and yell pretty loudly. He was surprised when Zoë came up to grab him, but the moment she told him what the problem was, he hurried to his room and grabbed his medical bag.

Down in the bunk, he ran through the usual tests while Wash laid back, opening and closing the parts that the doctor asked, while Zoë hovered nearby, a concerned mother bird made of steel and velvet.

"Well, he's running a fever, but there's not a whole lot of other symptoms," Simon said after a bit, taking blood from Wash's arm. The pilot gave him an emphatic grunt when he pinched his finger for the blood sample, but he didn't seem to have the energy to be snarky.

"From what I can tell, it's a variation on a local bacteria that has been passing around the Kaladesa system. Not dangerous, and treatable with standard antibiotics." He was preparing an inoculator as he spoke.

"You know about current diseases?" Zoë asked, to which the doctor shrugged.

"Public medical journals on the Cortex," he said. "Reading them was a habit I picked up while I was practicing on Osiris."

Zoë noticed that he didn't say "back home on Osiris" like he used to, and did her best to hide the slight smile she felt coming on at that. The young doctor injected Wash, eliciting another hammy moan from the pilot.

"And I'm going to have to go around to the rest of the crew too, to make sure none of the others have this, either," he added. "Enclosed environment and recycled air make a recipe for disease." She held out her arm as he prepared another injection for her, and didn't flinch at the pinch in her arm.

"It won't affect the baby, will it?" she asked, to which he shook his head.

"No, the child should be safe," he added. "Though since you're about four months along, you should be more careful when you leave the ship."

"Hey, Mal needs Zoë for adult supervision," Wash muttered, laying back in the bed and closing his eyes.

"If you feel any nausea, sickness, light-headedness, or upset stomach, come see me," Simon finished up, packing up his bag. "Have a good night. Or, day, I guess. I can't tell anymore."

After he vanished up the ladder and the room became theirs again, Zoë laid down in bed beside her husband. His skin was still flushed and hot from the fever, but she thought it might have cooled down a tiny bit since she'd last touched him. He lay there with his eyes closed for a while, even after she put an arm around his chest. She started to drift off to sleep, listening to the air pumps distantly, tirelessly hissing and rumbling.

"I don't want to go to sleep," Wash said, breaking the silence. She opened her eyes and looked up at her husband, who was staring up at the ceiling. "I . . . the dreams weren't pleasant."

"You want to talk about them?" she asked. He was silent for a few seconds.

"No," he said. "But they were . . . from the war."

Wash rarely spoke about what had happened to him before she'd met him. She knew he'd flown in the Unification War, and she knew he'd been shot down and taken prisoner. He never spoke openly about what had happened during his time as a prisoner of war, or of even who he'd been flying for. She suspected the Alliance, but she never asked. Whatever had happened, he didn't like to remember it.

But there were the dreams. Always late at night, and they always had the same effect.

Zoë guessed that may have been why Wash treated River like he did, and Zoë had more than a bit of empathy for Simon's position, too.

"I can find the Doc, get him to give you something so you don't dream," she offered. He shook his head, and closed his eyes.

"Tired," Wash whispered. "Need sleep anyway, even if I don't want it."

Zoë tightened her grip around his chest, and one of his hands rose, stroking her belly.

"We're right here with you," she assured him, and he smiled faintly.

"Good," he breathed, and then he was gone, falling back into slumber. Zoë kissed him gently on the forehead, nuzzled against her husband, and closed her eyes to join him.

* * *

It was edging toward twilight when they reached the outer edge of the settlement. The two armored carriers had approached with their topside weapons loaded and ready, and in the back of the transports, the soldiers were tense and ready for combat. They weren't expecting trouble, but they were prepared for it.

After all, this was the moon Victoria, and it was under martial law for a reason.

The transports were heavy, eight-wheeled armored personnel carriers armed with a pair of rapid-fire railguns, with a hull design that vaguely resembled an upside-down bathtub, though wrought of thick, ceramic armor plating and festooned with smoke grenade launchers, sensors, two gun turrets, and all the other attachments an infantry fighting vehicle carried.

"Sir, I got no movement," reported Corporal Evensky, manning the lead vehicle's forward railgun. "No lights, no one visible."

"No movement here either," reported Private Lewis, in the next vehicle, covering the other side of the settlement. "Place is quiet."

Inside the lead APC, Lieutenant Lowry frowned, checking the maps and the information they'd been given. This village didn't even have a name in the official registry. It consisted of about two hundred people, and with the exception of a small Blue Sun hydroponics facility three kilometers down the road, they were living off the grid – no external communications, no power, nothing. They were hicks living out in the country foothills. The only reason his patrol was coming out here was to establish Alliance authority per the usual occupational operating procedure: arrive with a show of force to remind the locals who was in charge on this moon, and then move on to the next town.

Except the town was dead and quiet. At this time of day, the space between afternoon and night, the village should have had a lot of movement, and lights should have been on in all the houses. People gathered for dinner in the evening, or were at the local wherever-it-was that people went after hours to have fun, depending on their religion. But there was nothing.

"Thermals?" Lowry asked, and second later, the responses came back, saying the same thing. "Nothing on EM, either?" Again, a negative.

"Okay," he said, making a decision. "First squad, we're going right down the middle, into town. Second squad, dismount here and fan out, be ready to advance into town on my order. Do not fire unless being fired on."

The transport rolled forward, while the second opened its rear doors and disgorged a ten-man squad of armored troops, almost invisible in the deepening night with their dark blue-black armor. The first vehicle rolled past the outer series of houses, well-built but unsophisticated wooden dwellings that had been there for a while. No one came out to look at the noisy APC as it chugged into the middle of town, the engine rumbling like a small, lost avalanche looking for its mountain.

"Place is quiet as a grave," whispered PFC Canale, on the rear gun.

"Think they're scared of us?" whispered Evensky.

"Would have seen someone by now," Lowry cut in, watching the data feeds. "Stay calm. Don't go lighting anything up." He felt sweat gathering on his palms, beneath his gloves. They should at least be getting heat signatures from some of these houses. They moved deeper into town, approaching the sheriff's office at the center of the village.

"Hold on," Evensky suddenly said. "Got residual heat, coming from the office."

"Movement?"

"None."

"Spotlight, sir?"

"Keep it off for now, don't want to spook anyone."

Lowry frowned. Was this an ambush? The moon was under martial law because of unrest, and he didn't doubt the possibility of Browncoat holdouts hiding on the planet and taking advantage of the chaos.

"Dismount," he said, making the call. "Second squad, move into the village, meet First at the center of town. First squad, move out by fireteams and check these buildings."

The rear ramp opened, and the troops stormed down the ramp, weapons at the ready but not raised to engage. Lowry followed them, stepping out into the cool night air and away from the stuffy, oppressive heat of the APC. The squad fanned out, the two five-man fireteams stepping out to check the buildings. It was getting dark, and hard to see without turning on optics or the spotlight.

"Squad, flares," the squad sergeant ordered, and immediately harsh red-white light erupted from both fireteams' positions, illuminating the wooden buildings. The light made them seem to be made of carved bone.

Carved bone with bullet holes in them.

They couldn't see them in the dim light, and the sensors didn't show them clearly, but now that they had good illumination, they could see that the houses all along the road running through town were riddled with bullet holes.

"Spotlight," Lowry hissed, even as the troops tensed up, rifles rising to their shoulders. The main lights on the APC flicked on and began to sweep up and down the road, illuminating the homes in stark clarity. Some of the houses were showing larger wounds than others, with rooftops caved in by weapons fire from overhead. Some showed scorch marks where lasers had sliced through walls like scalpels.

And now they could see bodies, through open doorways and windows.

"Evensky, heat?" Lowry called.

"Uh, sheriff's office, rooftop," the soldier called back.

"First team, secure that area," the squad sergeant ordered. Lowry nodded, agreeing. The sergeant was on the ball. He keyed his microphone.

"Second squad, be advised, we have signs of conflict inside the village. Weapons free, but do not shoot any civilians. Open fire only if you see a weapon."

He received an acknowledgement, and directed the other team to begin searching the buildings by pairs. A couple minutes later, the first fireteam called back.

"Sir, I think you need to see this," the corporal said, and Lowry hurried over to the office.

The inside was shot to hell, and the body of a slain deputy lay behind the desk. He'd been blasted repeatedly by several different weapons, his body almost unrecognizable as a person. His fingers still tightly clutched a shotgun, and his mouth hung open, the upper part of his skull charred from multiple laser beams.

A ladder in the armory – the empty armory, he noted - ran up to the rooftop. Lowry clambered up to the top of the building, and found a treated wooden rooftop with a couple of cheap solar panels bolted onto the top. The fireteam had secured all corners of the roof, with the corporal kneeling over another body.

"What have you got, corporal?" Lowry asked, getting close. The body bore a wound that looked like a ripping puncture, like he'd been killed with a large, heavy knife. Blood stained the rooftop all around him.

"Heat came from the body," the corporal said, looking up, pushing his thermal goggles off his eyes and onto his helmet. "Residual. This guy died after everyone else, I'm guessing."

Lowry held up a flare and lit it, kneeling beside the body. The man was in his mid-thirties, dressed in the vest and rugged trousers and button-up-shirt of a local. His mouth hung open, not-quite-dried blood leaking from it. He wore a priest's collar around his neck.

He was clutching something in his hand: a piece of paper. Lowry reached down and pried it from dead fingers. It was stained with blood, but there were a series of numbers on it, scrawled in shaky letters.

"Cortex contact number," Lowry said, frowning, and read the rest of the note. Beneath the number were four hastily scribbled words.

_Lancaster - Forthill - Derrial Book_

Lowry looked to the dead preacher, then to the note, and then out over the massacred town, and felt a deep shudder run through him. A tinge of fear ran through him.

"First and Second Squads, mount up," he hissed quickly, trying to control the apprehension running through him. "We're moving out."

Something horrible had happened here, and he had no intention of sticking around to find out what.

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** If the prologue wasn't an indicator, Zoe is one of the central characters in this arc. (of course, this being _Forward_, River is still the main character....) Obviously, something bad is going on.

As for that bit at the beginning of the chapter....no comment. :D

I'm not going to say much else, except that this particular arc is probably going to be one of the most....merciless ones yet. Bad things are going to happen here.

Until next chapter . . . .


	50. Chapter One: Voices

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_**Chapter One: Voices**_

The world below rose up toward them, a mixture of brown sand-and-scrub and thin blue oceans. This particular rock had only finished terraforming recently, and the immense spectre of a terraforming craft, towing the sky-scraper-sized machinery behind it, rose past the descending Firefly. The not-so-good ship _Serenity_ cut a swathe of rust and moderately-competent engineering through the atmosphere, descending to their next port of call. Usually, that meant the crew would disembark and look for work wherever they could find it, but today they were more intent on finding some supplies and stretching their legs. The take from their last job allowed a little room for frivolity, and they were intent on taking it.

"Well, there was a little service training with a pistol, but that was it," Wash said, leaning back in his chair in the cockpit as he directed the ship through its rattle-heavy descent. "Honestly, they weren't expecting us to actually do anything with it. If the pilot needs to use his gun, we're humped anyway, right?"

"That's understandable," Shepherd Book replied, seated at the copilot's chair. "But you're still a fair bit competent with a gun either way, I've noticed."

"Comes with the territory," Wash said, grinning. "Zoë has been making sure I can pick up the slack when we get into the second trimester. She's been real worried about not helping Mal and Jayne on the job . . . Though I guess she hasn't spoken on it much."

"Not to me, personally," Book said. "How many flight missions did you do?"

"Eh, just one," Wash said, shrugging. "Luck of the draw, really. I was running a freighter out of Newhall, tried landing inside a blockade. That was . . . Fun." His eyes went distant for a bit, but only for a moment. His next words were a bit more subdued.

"Spent the next couple of years in a prison camp," he continued. "Honed my shadow-puppet skills there. Saved my life a few times. Cons - and this is very important - cons and prisoners of war, they _love_ shadow puppets. We got shuffled around a couple of times, finally got released near the end." He put a hand on the steering yoke for the freighter. "Then, here. The rest is history."

Book nodded, and Wash kept his eyes carefully directed forward. The Shepherd didn't need to know that he'd been told about as much regarding that time as Wash told had his wife or Mal. He didn't care to remember.

The pilot was still feeling a bit nauseated from the fever a few nights back, but he was otherwise fine. He hadn't had anymore bad dreams like there had been that night, but that didn't change the fact that he still vividly remembered the blurred images. He worked his hands across the controls, making a series of minute adjustments to their course that really served no other purpose but to get his mind off that memory.

"I spent most of the war on Persephone," Book said, after a bit. "At one abbey or another."

"Didn't stay put?" Wash asked, glad for the distraction. "I was under the impression that men of the cloth tended to keep to themselves, in monasteries."

"It wasn't a monastery," Book explained, leaning against the wall. "And a lot of the brothers do move around, doing missionary work. I didn't so much do much of that, as I kept moving from one church or abbey to the next." He smiled. "I admit, even with the traveling, I was away from the world for a spell. Spent a lot of time reading, debating with the other brothers on interpretation. Probably why I was moving around so much."

Wash adjusted course, moving around the half-kilometer-long terraforming facility so as not to interdict its airspace.

"I didn't leave the planet, during the war itself," Book continued. "Travel was fairly restricted, of course."

"Yeah, there were a lot of blockades," Wash agreed. The Firefly stopped shuddering as it finally finished the transition into the atmosphere. "But, well, I tried running a few, and . . . kind of like what's happening on Victoria right now."

"Yeah, Victoria," came a voice behind them, and they glanced back to see Mal stride into the cockpit. "Make a note, we're gonna steer clear of that place if we can."

"There any rock left in the system we can land on without someone wanting to kill us?" Wash asked. "We have such a good PR department on this boat."

"I'm fair certain there's some folks on this world wants to shoot us, too," Mal mused, glancing over the instruments. "But there's no martial law or civil war going on here."

"Civil war is a bit of an exaggeration, Captain," Book said.

"Alliance is letting loose on the Cortex that there's unrest and martial law, Shepherd," Mal replied. Wash could tell he was trying, very hard, to suppress a grin. "Just imagine what they ain't letting out."

"You seem quite cheerful at the notion of another civil war, Captain," Book said, his tone carrying an edge of disapproval.

"I'm cheerful of the notion of folks standing up for themselves," Mal replied. "But I'm not going to lie that it does make me feel awful fuzzy to see the Alliance having trouble of their own."

"Perhaps," Book said, his tone still not approving of Mal's attitude, but he didn't say anything else on the matter, and instead started toward the door to the hallway outside. "If you'll excuse me, Captain."

"By all means," Mal replied, stepping aside to let the Shepherd pass. As he did so, he glanced back to Wash, and the rising atmosphere. "Another glorious landing of the unexploded variety."

"I can set the engines on fire if you want a crisis," Wash offered. "We're due for another one this month."

"Save that for when we get really bored," Mal replied. "Just get us down on the ground. I need some proper wind in my face."

"Right away, we will get it blowing all over your face, sir," Wash said, and Mal nodded, before stopping. The pilot paused, and then looked back up to Mal.

"Yeah, that was a bit too homoerotic," Wash admitted.

"Well," Mal said, turning to leave as well, "if you're competing with Jayne in the horrificness department, he's got a monopoly."

* * *

"So." That was Mal, an hour later.

"Yeah." That was Wash, a couple of seconds after Mal.

"Kaylee with a shotgun."

With those four words, Captain Reynolds summed up the whole of the weirdness that was defining this day.

"Could be worse," Wash said, walking by Mal with his Mateba revolver in hand, a shotgun of his own slung over his shoulder. "Doctor could have a rocket launcher."

"I'd prefer to sleep tonight, thank you," Mal shot back.

_Serenity_ was parked dirtside on the moon, a couple of planets starward from the moon where they'd dealt with the angry puppy-poachers a couple weeks ago. They'd found a berth in a "spaceport" zone, which in local parlance meant a five hundred square-kilometer zone of scrub and dirt and flatness that was set aside for ships to land (and crash) in. It was set aside mostly because the locals on this particular moon believed fairly heavily in going to excess, and the best use they had for a low-fertility patch of land they owned but didn't have the money to develop was to lease it out as spacecraft landing zones. Most of the ships landed a lot closer to the actual communities around here, but for ships simply looking to touch down for a bit or to exchange cargoes, staying farther inside the landing zone was a good idea.

It also made or a good impromptu firing range, which the steady crack-and-rumble of gunfire attested to.

Zoë and Jayne had set the range up, which consisted of several poles they'd jammed into the dirt at fifty-meter intervals, with cardboard targets nailed to them. A blanket laden with every gun _Serenity_ had – enough to arm up a medium-sized militia, these days – was set out beside the instructees. Kaylee and Simon were out in the baking sun alongside Zoë, listening as she gave them pointers and instruction on how to use the weapons. Jayne stalked along around the range, not saying much except to offer pointers where he saw them. That was mostly because of Mal's quiet orders; if he'd let Jayne go into full-on "teaching" mode, he was terrified of what might happen.

"Now, this weapon has kick," Zoë was explaining as Kaylee hefted the heavy shotgun. "Even with the compensators, it'll knock you off your feet if you don't brace yourself and set your feet. If you don't set it tight against your shoulders, it might fly out of your hands, too."

She nodded, listening intently. Kaylee wasn't unfamiliar with firearms – being on _Serenity's_ crew meant she'd fired a gun more than a few times – but she didn't have proper instruction in how to actually _use_ them. Zoë had started off the instruction by explaining to her the technical details of how the weapon worked, which immediately got Kaylee's interest, as did all things mechanical.

Simon, on the other hand, seemed uncomfortable and worried, which in Mal's eyes meant that things were going normally with him. The Doc had relaxed quite a bit from the uptight core-born fop he'd been for so long, but he was still fidgety about firearms when he wasn't focused on something else more important. Mal had seen him handle a submachinegun with no compunctions when they'd been fighting Niska's men to save Jayne and River six months back, but then he'd been centered on saving his sister. Today he was handling a deadly tool, and without that lethal focus the boy had whenever someone he cared about was at stake, he was distracted. The doctor had sworn to do no harm yet had taken more than a few lives in his time, and Mal couldn't tell how that was affecting him, because of Simon's bluntly stoic demeanor.

If the Doc wasn't so much like Mal himself, he might have liked him more. Only Captain Reynolds was allowed to be that stoic, standoff-ish, rude, and jerky, dammit.

The rest of the crew were enjoying what comforts could be had in the dirtside stop, which Mal had mostly made so they could stretch their legs outside the ship. Wash was on the range by now, standing to the side and firing his shotgun while Zoë taught the others. He knew how to handle a gun better than they did, but he admitted he needed plenty of work. Jayne was helping him shoot, giving him what he called a "crash-course" on automatic weapons. Shepherd Book was seated under the shade of the Firefly, paging through another volume he'd dug up somewhere, a piece of literature Mal had never heard of. Inara was still inside the bay itself watching the proceedings while sitting on Kaylee's favorite fold-up chair. She glanced up when she sensed Mal's eyes on her, and gave him a smile.

"Coming to see the training?" she asked, and Mal nodded, moving out into the sunlight. A whiff of wind threw up a bit of dust in his face, and he squinted, though he was too manful to raise a hand to shade his vision.

"I figured I inflicted it on everyone since I made the suggestion," Mal mused. "Might as well suffer alongside everyone else." Of course, by "suggestion," Mal had meant a very polite order that would help everybody out, and not phrased like an order at all. He could be subtle, when he tried very, very hard.

"Do you know how much longer we're going to stay in this charming place?" Inara asked. In the past, which might have been tinged a bit with annoyance or sarcasm, but her smile and tone told him it was a joke.

Mal grunted in reply. He planned to move closer to civilization once the shooting had stopped, though he wasn't sure if he was going to stay for long on this world. They were still sitting on a whole lot of money from the last major job, and Mal had fenced most of the precious they'd stolen, which left the crew well-off for a long time. They didn't need to take any dangerous or risky jobs now, or for the next year at least.

Of course, the puppy caper had taught him that danger often found them, even when they weren't courting it.

* * *

The shooting lesson ended with everyone unperforated, which Mal considered a blessing, and he'd brought _Serenity_ a bit closer to civilization. Wash had departed with Zoë, Jayne, and Kaylee to pick up supplies, Shepherd Book had taken up another spot outside the ship to continue reading, Inara had disappeared into her shuttle, and Simon was down in the infirmary doing doctorly things.

Mal was sitting back in the mess, taking a drink from a glass of the nice sort of milk, fresh from cattle, when a sword slammed down onto the wood in front of him.

"_Ai ya_!" he shouted, nearly falling out of his chair.

Sure, the sword was sheathed, and it fell fairly lightly, and it wasn't a huge blade, but it came out of nowhere, and more importantly, it was being handled by River.

Mal caught himself with one hand on the table, glanced at the smiling girl, and then at the sword laying on the table, and then gave her his third-best Captain's Glare of Doom.

"Albatross," he breathed, pulling his chair back to an upright position. "You trying to make me turn you out?"

She simply kept smiling.

"I'll do it. I'll throw you right outside that ramp and leave," he warned. "Don't think I don't think you can handle yourself. I will turn you out in heartbeat."

She kept _gorram_ smiling, and Mal opened his mouth to continue his threats, but then stopped. He closed his eyes, inhaled, exhaled, and slowly opened them to glare at his insane navigator.

"You want to give an old man a heart attack?" he asked, and the smile faded a bit.

"We need to talk business," she said. He blinked, and stared at her for a moment, mind not exactly comprehending the words as she shifted to seriousness. In the span between her statement an his response, she sat down at the table, and waited for him to reply.

"Business," he said. As retorts went, it wasn't half bad.

"Business," River nodded.

"_Bus_iness?"

"Bus-_i_-ness."

"What manner of business we talking about here?" he asked, remembering the last time he had a Tam as a client.

"A simple transaction," she said, and reached out to touch the sword.

Mal was closer, and he grabbed the blade, snatching it away from her hands. She blinked, then nodded, as if in approval.

"Where did you get this, anyhow?" Mal asked. He recognized the electrosword that Jayne had snatched from the museum in Dumont's estate nearly a month ago, and he'd kept it stashed in one his many hiding spots on the ship. River's response was to give him _that_ look, reserved for Jayne or Simon's particular brands of dumb.

"Okay," he said, catching her meaning. "Psychic. Reader. Genius. Point is, why are you waving it around in my face like this?"

She cocked her head sideways, but the "wow, you're an idiot" look didn't fade. He paused, considering her meaning, and he understood after a moment, reading her quite clearly.

"No," Mal said. "No. No bladed weapons on the ship, and sure as Buddha no electrified bladed weapons on the ship. You're not going to carry-"

"Ten thousand," she said.

"-weapons on how much again?" Mal stopped in mid-rant.

"My cut from the last job, all sales of items considered, has been eleven thousand," she explained, and then smiled again. "My personal tastes are . . . not terribly expensive. I don't need that much money."

"Albatross, that sword is worth a lot of money, and-"

"The average amount of money you've gotten fencing the other valuables so far has come out to six thousand, four hundred and eighty credits," she said. He didn't need to ask how she figured that out. "I'm offering over thirty percent the value you've been getting from the rest of the loot."

What was annoying was that she was right and she made sense. And if there was one thing Mal liked more than having a good chunk of change on hand, it was having a larger chunk of change on hand. A lot of that money would get also spread out as part of everyone else's cut too, so River was effectively giving most of the crew a thousand credits each as a gift. There was no real reason to argue with the deal, except for the problem of giving Albatross a bladed weapon – a long one, too, that pumped lightning into folks.

"The sword will remain sheathed unless you want me to draw it," she said quickly, as soon as he thought about it. "Kaylee can rig a lock on it that requires your voiceprint – or anyone else you trust – to let me draw it."

Well, that was awful reasonable, and it was one of the few ways to lock it up that he couldn't see a way for her to easily get around if she was in an irrational mood. So, that left only one question to be asked.

"So, why?" he asked, and that made her pause. Her eyes unfocused for a second, and she seemed to think about what to say next.

"I . . . don't have my own," she finally said. Her hand rose up and plucked at her dress. "Clothes. Writing and artwork and a journal. But nothing else is mine. And the clothes are Kaylee's, or Wash's, or bought by Simon. The journal and pens and pencils were bought by Simon. I don't have anything that is me."

He considered that for a few moments, and then thought he understood. Out here in the 'Verse, away from the Core, one got where they were through skill and through what they owned. They made their way with what they had, and the key to that was often a gun. He knew well enough that he'd only lived as long as he had because of his skill with his sidearm and the roughness and toughness of his crew.

River wanted to make her way as well, but, he suspected, she felt she couldn't if she didn't have a weapon of her own.

"You want the sword because it's more to you than just a blade," he said. "Or you mean, you want to make it into something more than just a blade."

"Yes," she said, nodding. "I am functional. I must have something to call my own."

He considered it. He'd possibly be buying a world of trouble if he let her have that sword, but the rules she'd laid down for herself told him she'd put serious thought into it, and the look in her eyes told him either she _needed_ the blade, or that he was a horrible sucker for the puppy-dog look.

Mal set the electrosword back on the table, and slid it toward her. She reached down and took it in hand, and then slowly drew the _jian_ from its sheath. Her eyes flicked over the polished metal, and then she closed her eyes.

"Just don't be like Jayne and-" Mal started.

"I call it Laertes," she said, opening her eyes, and glanced to Mal. Her accent took on a very Jayne-like level of gruffness. "It is my very favorite sword."

_Oh, hell,_ Mal thought to himself. What kind of monster was Jayne helping make?

* * *

As usual, Zoë didn't flinch as Simon took her blood. She watched him as he went to work, taking the sample with the calm precision she'd come to expect from him, and felt a bit of anxiety as she prepared to ask the question.

"Nothing's changed much, has it?"

"No," Simon replied. "From what I can tell, the baby's developing just fine." He was in doctor-mode, she noted, which meant that the usually uptight doctor was being too professional and severe.

"Good," she said, nodding and rubbing the swelling belly where her child was growing. In five short months, they'd have a new addition to their family.

"Wash is recovering pretty well," she added after a few moments. "He'll be back to normal in a couple of days."

"That's good," he replied. "That fits with the progression of the disease. And no one else has come down with any symptoms, so I think I got it before it could develop into something serious."

"Yeah, we could have end up with the whole ship having fever," she remarked, to which Simon nodded. There was a moment's silence, during which he started putting his equipment away. As he did so, he glanced up at Zoë, and for an instant she got something like that feeling she picked up when River was "reading" her. It wasn't as unsettling, and she had the impression that it was the same thing Inara did to Mal, reading emotions.

Where had Simon picked up that particular skill?

"It's got me worried," she admitted, more to herself than to him. "The baby."

"We're all afraid," Simon said after a few seconds. "This is something we haven't really dealt with, and we do live life on the edge out here." He shrugged. "But like I told the Captain, if we're too afraid to make anything of this life, how do we live?"

"Well, at least we've got you here, Doctor," Zoë said. He chuckled.

"I might be able to deliver the baby, but I'm not much of a parent."

"You've got more experience at it than everyone else here, 'cept maybe the preacher," she replied, and that made him pause, and then nod. He started putting the samples away and the needles in the cleaners.

"I never thought of it that way," he admitted. "I guess after everything that happened, I've been a better parent to my sister than-"

The box he was putting the drugs into slipped and fell over, clattering to the floor. He cursed, picking up the break-proof vials, and Zoë dropped down to help him. They started scooping things up, and she glanced at the labels, to help sort them out – an old reflex she'd picked up from her experience as a makeshift combat medic.

One of the labels made her pause.

"Isovalinitarnin," she whispered. Simon glanced up, and saw her raise her eyebrows.

"You recognize that drug?" he asked, and she nodded.

"I was on it for most of the war," she said. "Useful stuff for a woman in combat, to keep her hormones and cycle suppressed." She glanced back up at him. "Why do you have it?"

Simon reached out to take the vial from her hands.

"Just in case," he replied, putting the vial back in the box. "Um. For the last fourteen months, I've been picking up traces of it in River's bloodstream."

"They used it to keep her cycle suppressed," Zoë said, understanding. "A standard dose lasts about a year or so."

"It's been fading for the last couple of months," he added. "I've been keeping a close eye on her condition, in case the hormones and her cycle have unexpected side effects." Zoë murmured in comprehension.

"I understand," she said. "Just make sure you ask her first before you use it on her."

He nodded, but stiffened a bit, and the look on his face told her that the notion of forcing his sister to take such a drug was absolutely out of the question.

"They took away three years," he said, words tight, looking away as he finished putting everything up. "I won't take away anything else."

Zoë felt a faint flush and a bit of embarrassment. Perhaps she was being too practical in her thinking, and projecting that onto Simon in turn. The Doctor would never consider drugging his sister in such a manner, she realized, and moreso, her insinuation that he _might_ could be taken as an insult.

"Doc," she said. " . . . . sorry. I know how much River means to you. Shouldn't have spoken like that."

"No, its fine," he replied, looking back up to her. "If the hormones go out of control, or have an unexpected effect on her, I can use this to bring things back to . . . well, not normal, but back to the way they were. But I'm not going to ask her to take this without good reason."

Zoë considered the Doctor, and his fears and worries about his sister, especially now that she was returning to normalcy.

"You're worried for her," she said. "Worried what might happen now that she's growing up."

Simon was silent for a moment, before exhaling. It was something similar to an agreement.

"I understand," she added. "Family's important to us. We get scared when family goes into the unknown. I . . . don't like to let Wash go, and he doesn't like to let me head out either where he can't watch over me.

"He was against it, you know. The baby," she continued. She didn't usually go into a long conversation like this with anyone but Wash and sometimes Inara, but it felt good to talk to someone else about it. "He got worried for what might happen to our baby. But I've been wanting a child for a long time, and when Wash nearly died back on Universe's moon, I think he realized it too. And now-" Zoë paused in mid-speech, looking past Simon, and he turned.

"I'm not interrupting, am I?" Kaylee said, hovering in the door to the infirmary, a tinge of uncertainty in her voice.

"No, we were just talking about Zoë's child," Simon said. "Why?" There was a flicker of emotion over Kaylee's face, a mixture of several different emotions, but out the other side came a bit more nervousness than there had been before. Zoë noticed it was all directed at Simon, though.

"I something wrong?" Zoë asked, and Kaylee inhaled a bit, clenching her teeth, and picking up that expression she got when she was about to deliver news she was worried wouldn't be taken well.

"Cap'n wants everyone up in the dining room," she explained. "He's got something we all need to help with."

"What is it?" Simon asked, and Kaylee winced again.

"River's got a sword."

The ensuing silence threatened to kill with its deafening power.

"What."

Simon and Zoë's statement kind of blurred together, and while it wasn't particularly loud or hostile, it made Kaylee jump a bit anyway.

"Cap'n gave it to her, and-"

"He _what_?"

It was a little creepy how synchronized they were.

"Why would he let her have a sword?" Simon breathed. To Zoë, it looked like someone had just punched him in the gut with an elephant. She admitted that she was probably looking the same, though she was more familiar with Mal's tendency toward bad ideas. Of course, she also knew that Mal's more idiotic ideas usually had some grounding in sanity.

"Kaylee," Zoë cut in before Simon could continue, putting a hand on the Doctor's shoulder to calm him. "Why? And what sword?"

"Well, she paid him for it," the mechanic explained quickly. "Used all of her cut on the last job to buy that old electrosword."

"But he-" Simon began. Zoë, being the voice of reason, squeezed hard on his shoulder to quiet him down. He glanced back at her, and she nodded toward Kaylee, her expression telling him to be quiet and listen.

"Kaylee's _talking_," she said, and put enough emphasis on that last word to make the unspoken point that when _your_ woman was talking like this, you shut up and listened.

"Okay," Kaylee said in the silence, talking quickly. "So Cap'n and River talked for a bit, then they came and got me, and I'm putting together a lock on the sword so's River can't draw it 'less one of us speaks the right words. They're bein' real smart and responsible about it." She shrugged, smiling a bit. "Bit more than usual, for Mal."

A second passed, and Simon considered his words as Zoë eased off.

"So, the Captain needs us to voiceprint, I take it," he said. His tone spoke volumes about how uncomfortable he was with this whole idea.

"Yep," she said, nodding. "He's tellin' the others right now-"

"_What!" _a voice echoed down the stairwell beside the infirmary, sounding distinctly like Jayne.

"-and they're reactin' as best we expected," she said with a shrug.

* * *

Emotions in the dining room were _blendy._ She usually didn't get a chance to appreciate them when she was this lucid.

She watched them, seated at the table, Kaylee on the other side, hands _drifting through _and _negotiating _with the wires and machinery of the lock that was fitted to the end of the sword sheath. She didn't so much work the machinery as she _**asked**_ where it belonged, and _it answered_, guiding her along.

Everyone else _**loomed and thundered **_around her. Their _colors_ and _patterns_ _pulsed and flashed_, _ink pens _and **colored pencils** and _markers_ and **chalk** marring their pages with thought. Trepidation and concern flashed_, runny, __**oily**__ and __pervasive_, and for good reason.

They were giving the crazy person a sword.

River couldn't hide her smile.

Wash seemed a little embarrassed, but he was hiding the fact that he had been the one to bring up the idea. They shared a conspiratorial glance and smirk, _tinged_ only a little by the slight nausea hanging from his lingering sickness. Mal was resigned to the idea, but mollified by the prospect of money and her promise, which _sat on his shoulders and __tugged at his ears_ whenever he considered changing his mind.

Jayne was feeling many things, and they were all unpleasant as he attached himself ferociously to a wall via his back and glowered unhappily, eyes gleaming like **blue embers**. Shepherd Book was wary but accepting, _his pages _written clearly that he understood how important this was to her. Zoë, too, was wary, but hers were practical reasons, **blocky and simple and straightforward**, analyzing the risks associated with the blade and weighing them against the benefits and safety measures.

Kaylee was happy, but then, Kaylee was usually that way. She understood the necessity of possession; after all, she was _**fused**_ to the ship, mentally if not physically, so she could understand the connection River wanted with an inanimate object. Mal was the same way, with his pistol. Inara, on the other hand, was a mixture, hard to read, multiple _**colors and pages**_ coming together. There was happiness for her _mei-mei's _decision, concern for everyone's safety, meshed with trust in both the girl and the captain that they were making the right decision.

Simon didn't like it at all, partially because he was her brother and thus worried forever, like a _**loving, brotherly asteroid**_. But he was also put off that she hadn't talked to him about it beforehand, and the look he gave her told her as much.

She peered right back at him. He wasn't her father, and her biological father could stick his head in a fire for all she cared, too.

River wasn't one to hate, but she could feel apathy just fine.

"Alright," Mal said, voice _**cutting**_ through the couple of quiet conversations. "I'm seeing how everyone's here, and everyone here knows what we're meeting about. River, you got something to say on this?"

Her head shook, and her mouth _spoke a negative_.

"Alright, then," Mal said. "I got to-"

"Hey, ain't we got a say?" Jayne demanded.

"This ain't your call," Mal replied, bluntly hammering Jayne's response.

"Look, it ain't that I don't trust River, but-"

"Liar," she cut in.

A flash of annoyance, _**colored blue **__and__** silver**_, jumped from Jayne, and he glanced to River.

"But I-"

"Bad liar," she added. The point sank in, and he growled, not willing to give it up yet.

"Stop that," he snarled. She stuck her tongue out at him, to which he crossed his arms and gave her a _good thinking _about what she could do with that tongue that made her flush.

"Children," Mal stepped in with the metaphorical hammer again, catching the now-silent exchange and cutting off the argument. He moved into the middle of the room, looking at everyone around the table.

"Now, River's saved our butts on plenty of occasions, and I'm one to appreciate them that saves my rear from the fire. I'm willing to think River's earned my trust to have a personal weapon of her own, especially as we've trusted her with guns before. We had a good discussion on this, and I'm left with the impression that there's not a whole lot of objections from anyone here-"

"Hey I-" Jayne cut in, _**blue and reds **_rising up like quills on his back.

Mal's glare snapped onto him, eyes of _**blue fire**_, and the _warning_ lanced across the room. It stopped Jayne's protest and pinned it against the wall on a pike of _"shut up."_

"And I'm sure_ the rest _of ya'll have come to trust her enough to think she can handle herself." He broke off to glare at Jayne a second time. Anger _simmered back _around the mercenary's head, replaced by a tiny, guarded **cloud **of apology and contrition.

River hid her smile. She would never tell him she knew about that; he had his pride.

"And worst comes to worst, we have our failsafe, which, by-the-by, River came up with on her own before she ever came to me. That's telling me she's at least clear enough in the brainpan that I can trust her. Any objections?"

There were murmurs and shakes of heads, and agreement and acceptance _wafted_ around the room.

River looked to Jayne, whose arms were crossed and petulance _rolling off him _in a harsh wave, despite his silent acceptance that Mal had a point. It was obvious that he didn't like it, and she understood why. Even after all this time, and all they'd been through, she was still the unstable, crazy little girl. Another person might have been offended at that, but River understood that she was, at some level, still exactly what Jayne feared.

"Functional" did not equate to "sane." Jayne understood that, and so did Mal. He never would have agreed to her possessing a weapon without the voice-lock.

"Okay, so, Kaylee, you gonna explain?" Mal asked, and she nodded, holding up a recorder. It _flickered_ with her _ingenuity_, as Kaylee had built the thing from scratch.

"This is real simple," she explained. "The lock is a hinge that clamps over the sword's handle . . . grip-thing here."

"Hilt," Inara offered, and Kaylee nodded her thanks.

"The hilt-y thing," she continued. "I'm coding the lock so a specific voice-activated command will open the hinge, allowing the sword to be drawn. That way, in case, um, River happens to . . . ." She floundered a bit, the _**ink running **_in her **mind-words**.

"In case I go crazy," River interjected, and Kaylee winced a tiny bit, causing an ache to _well up _in the girl as she watched.

"Yeah, so everyone'll be safe."

"Ya'll each think of a phrase or password," Mal said. "Something simple but easy to remember. If River needs to draw the sword, it'll need to be something we can say fast."

Kaylee handed the recorder to Mal, and he took it. He paused, thinking for a second, before glancing to Zoë.

"Steel condor," he said, and there was a wave of confusion from most angles, excepting Zoë and Jayne. He passed it to Zoë.

"Oh, and make sure to speak it real clear and loud," Kaylee interjected. "Microphone and voice recognition thingy can work fine with a whole manner of ways you say it, but I need a clear print to make it fit."

"What now?" Jayne asked after a second's confusion.

"Just say it loud," Mal's words forged the _**complex concept **_into the **simple thought-bites **Jayne handled best. "Easier to pick up."

"Um, okay," Jayne replied, nodding.

"Done?" Zoë asked, and Mal nodded. She spoke the same phrase Mal had, and then passed it to Wash.

"_Xiao teng_," he said into the microphone, and shared a grin with her. A moment later, an insistent beeping drifted down the corridor from the cockpit, and he glanced over his shoulder. "Sounds like a wave. I'll go check it."

Kaylee grabbed the microphone, glanced conspiratorially to River, and said "Fourteen." She broke out giggling at the memory, prompting another round of confusion, except from Simon, who groaned faintly. He took the microphone next, and mulled over the words to say. She watched the pages turn in his mind until they settled on one particular memory.

"Independents had dinosaurs," he said, and shared a grin of his own with his sister.

"We had what now?" Mal asked, _**confusion**_ dancing around his head and throwing his captain-ish hair about.

"Private joke," Simon said, as he passed the recorder to Inara, which made Mal more annoyed.

"Yeah, all our little codes here are private jokes," he said. "I just wish I had a dinosaur during the war."

Inara mulled over what to say, mind _drifting_ from elegant phrases to poetry to several different languages. Finally, she looked up to River, and then to Mal, and spoke one word which made the annoyed smirk on the Captain's face all the more pronounced.

"Albatross," she said, locking eyes with him.

"I'm never going to forget that poem now," Mal said.

"This room needs more lampshades," River mumbled to Kaylee, who frowned, and nodded.

"I'll pick some up next time we're in town," she replied.

Inara finished speaking her phrase, and was passing the recorder to Jayne, when something green and plastic deflected off Mal's head. He jerked, yelping, and glanced down at the object that hit him, having flown down the crew corridor to bop him square on the noggin.

It was Spartacus.

"Hi_lar_ious!" Mal yelled up the corridor at Wash, and threw the plastic dinosaur back to the pilot as hard as he could. A yell of surprise from Wash and a distant rattling impact came back down the passage.

"Cortical electrodes!" Jayne suddenly yelled, and everyone turned to him, giving him the standard mixture of surprised expressions. He shrugged, passing the recorder to Book.

"What?" he asked. "I ain't got a funny story 'bout River here, and I remembered them fancy words, so I'm gonna use 'em."

"Just a weird thing for you to say, is all," Mal said. Jayne shrugged in response.

Book wrestled with what to say for a moment, and as with Inara, River saw many different symbolic phrases pass through his mind, before he finally looked up at River and met her eyes.

"One Three Seven," he said into the microphone.

A heartbeat of memory, of pain, and then it subsided. She looked back at Book, and nodded approval.

"Okay," Mal said, blinking. "That was awful unsymbolic."

"Yes," Book said, nodding. "It was." He handed the recorder back to Kaylee.

"That everyone now?" Mal asked, glancing around the room, and the crew nodded. "Right then. Kaylee, you get your thingies rigged up on the whatsit, and we'll test 'er out later."

Zoe and Inara moved out of the room, talking quietly heading for the bridge, while Kaylee scooped up the sword and the various pieces of the locking mechanism, and started toward Simon. He was momentarily torn between Kaylee and River, but the mechanic snatched up his attention in **sharp, smiling mechanic-teeth **and wouldn't let go. Mal started after Zoe, while Jayne kept looming beside River and remained unhappy-yet-too-smart-to-voice-it.

Book walked by River, and their eyes met. He opened his mouth to apologize, but then stopped before she could shake her head to tell him he didn't need to.

The part of her life contained in those numbers was past, but it was still part of her, and she would not deny it. The Shepherd's words were not about the past, though, but a promise that he understood what she'd gone through, and was with her as she grew out of it. He understood she was functional.

She smiled, he nodded, and started up the passage toward the bridge, only to intercepted by Wash.

"Hey, Shepherd," he said quickly. "That wave was for you. Patch it through to your quarters?"

"That'll work," the preacher replied, nodding.

River watched him leave, and considered for a moment how much they'd just said without speaking words.

"Voice is inefficient," she mumbled, standing up, keeping the words mostly to herself. "Can achieve several orders of magnitude more communication through thought transmission."

"What now?" Jayne asked as she moved past him. She stopped, and sniffed the air while looking at him, and _collated smell _and **applications**.

"You need to shower," she said loudly. "Smells like gun lube." She declined her head for a moment toward his waist, and then a bit lower. "Not used on guns."

Jayne blinked, then his eyes widened for a moment. By the time anyone spoke in response, she was already skipping and **floating **away toward the rear corridor, intent on getting out of the room before Simon could start asking her questions and be _Big Brother _while trying to be a big brother.

"And my virgin ears, and virgin brain, and virgin _bowels_ are forever seared with that mental image," Wash cried.

River giggled.

* * *

Book fished around in his carry-on bag for his private Cortex connector. The bag contained almost all of the worldy possessions he still owned: mostly clothes, personal hygiene items, a small medical kit that was dwarfed by the Doctor's, a bundle of books, and his personal hand computer.

He glanced at that as he hunted for the Cortex link. The latest file was only eight percent reconstructed, and there was nothing intelligible he could glean from it. He paused the process and closed the file, uploaded the information to his spare data needle, and removed the one containing the war-promising secrets. That done, he purged the sensitive data from his computer, and connected the Cortex link.

A few seconds later, as the Cortex finished the handshake protocol between worlds, a face appeared. The man was youngish, probably late twenties, fair featured with short blond hair, and wearing an Alliance military uniform. His rank insignia pinned him as a Captain, and the markings on his collar established him as an investigator with the Alliance Army.

"Hello, is this Mister Book? Derrial Book?"

"Yes," Book replied, settling down on his bed. "May I ask who's calling?"

"Of course, sir," the young captain replied. That alone told him a couple of volumes. This was not a call to establish authority, as indicated by the young officer's apparent politeness. "Captain Nathan Kyle, Army Investigative Division. We're in the middle of investigating an incident on the moon Victoria, and your name came up, along with this Cortex address. We're trying to put the pieces together."

"Does this have anything to do with the police action on that moon?" Book asked, carefully reading the young man. His previous tone, and the way he'd spoken the words, left Book with the impression that he'd meant to add the word "quickly" to the end of his sentence.

"No, sir, no direct connection we can find to the unrest on the moon," Kyle replied. Book nodded. Right there had been a small but notable breach in operational security. He shouldn't have let that information slip. So, what did that slip-up mean?

"Can you explain what happened?" Book asked, letting a little authority slip into his voice. Not enough to be obvious, but enough to get a drilled soldier responding a bit more readily.

"Of course, sir," Kyle replied. "A patrol was passing through a small village on the Hayha continent, through the Titan mountains. They found that the village they were scheduled to pass through had been destroyed. The inhabitants were all killed. Estimated number about a hundred and fifty."

Book closed his eyes for a moment, whispering a quick prayer. He would check this out later to find out exactly how many had died, and give a proper prayer for them later, but for now he continued grilling the officer - politely, of course.

"How were they killed?"

"High-grade weapons fire, military issue, from what the patrol reported," Kyle said. "They didn't remain at the site for long, citing a need to continue their patrol."

Sloppy, Book thought. Patrols to settlements existed for precisely this reason. Those men should have stayed where they were and investigated, or at least secured the site for investigators.

"And what connection can did you find to me?" Book asked the big question. Kyle paused, swallowed, and exhaled.

"We found a Cortex contact number on one of the bodies," Kyle said. The note on it also had your name, plus two other words - what we assume are names, too."

"Can you tell them to me?" Book asked.

"Yes," Kyle replied. "They were Lancaster and Forthill."

Book hid the recognition at the first name with ease of practice, but the second one did surprise him overtly. For half a second, his mind raced, running up and down the myriad paths those two names brought up, but that was all the time he had to think before needing to respond.

"I recognize the second name," he said, frowning in thought. It was true. He did recognize the second name. He also recognized Lancaster, but Kyle didn't need to know that. "He was a priest at the Saint Jerome Abbey on Persephone. I knew him well enough." That was another truth bending phrase, but Kyle didn't need to know that either.

"Well, the body it was found on was a priest," Kyle added.

"Did you take a picture?" Book asked, and Kyle frowned, before nodding. "May I see it?"

Book added an extra layer of authority to that request, and after a second, Kyle nodded again.

"Of course, sir," he replied. "Let me find it." He looked off-screen for a moment. A second later, an image appeared on the screen that Book did nothing to hide his pain at seeing.

It was indeed Father Jonathan Forthill. He had been killed with a bladed weapon of some kind, obviously crude and not military issue, but he had died quickly. His face was easily recognizable.

A wave of memories rose up as he looked at that slack, dead face, and Book shuddered a slight bit before regaining control over himself.

"That would be Father Forthill, yes," Book whispered. "I can confirm that."

"Thank you, sir," Kyle replied. "I hate to ask you this, sir, but I need some more information. Have you had contact with Father Forthill recently?"

"No," Book replied, knowing what questions would be asked next. "He left Saint Jerome several years ago to found a new church elsewhere." He didn't say that he knew it was on Victoria. "I haven't spoken with him since." A letter every now and then, of course, but no speaking. And no contact in the last year.

"Have you ever been to Victoria, sir?"

"No," Book replied.

The next fifteen minutes were the standard set of questions an investigator offered to a witness, which Book responded to with an almost universal barrage of "No" and "I don't know." Finally, Captain Kyle, having exhausted all the questions he could ask the preacher, sighed and bid him a farewell, and closed the link to resume his investigation, but not before giving Book a contact number for himself.

Book set the computer down, making sure to close the image of Forthill's slashed corpse, and sat back, closing his eyes. The shock of this was slowly setting in, he knew, and he would probably feel the pain and grief more acutely once it had done so, but for now, one thing rose up first and foremost in his mind.

Jonathan Forthill had been murdered, and he had to find his killer.

"Killers" was more likely, considering what Kyle had described happened to the village. For both the priest and the people that had been murdered, he had to bring them justice.

After he reached that conclusion, Book opened his eyes, exhaled, and looked toward the cracked door to his bunk.

"How much did you hear, Captain?" Book asked. The door slid open, and Malcolm Reynolds loomed on the other side.

"The important parts," he replied. "You're not mad I listened in?"

"Small ship, hard to keep secrets," Book replied. "I was going to . . . ." he trailed off.

No. He couldn't ask that of Mal and the others.

"This priest," Mal said, stepping into the room. "Friend of yours?"

"You can say that," Book replied. "He . . he witnessed me. Years back, when I first went to the monastery."

Mal was silent on that for a moment, and Book saw something working behind his eyes, a memory or a feeling or emotion he couldn't place.

"That right?" Mal asked, and glanced back to the now blank screen, then back to Book.

The Shepherd knew it was selfish to ask Mal to take him there, so he didn't say it. He could have them drop him off at another planet where he could acquire transport to head for Victoria safely. He opened his mouth to speak.

"I'll tell Wash to change course for Victoria," Mal said suddenly, and before Book could reply, he turned to leave.

"Captain," Book said quickly, and Mal glanced back as he stepped into the hallway. "That moon is-"

"Alliance occupation," Mal replied, as if it were a coffee stain. "We've handled worse." Book was about to object again when Mal came to a complete halt and turned to face him, and the Shepherd saw something in Mal's eyes, something he had rarely glimpsed His most vivid memory of it was . . . .

_"Can't order me around boy . . . I'm not part of your crew . . . ."_

_"Yes you _are_."_

"Captain," Book said, nodding, doing his best to keep the warmth behind his eyes in check. "Thank you."

"Welcome." Mal nodded, and then walked back up the corridor. He didn't say anything else. He didn't need to.

Ten minutes later,_ Serenity _changed course for Victoria.

* * *

-

* * *

_**Author's Notes: **_And the plot doth verily thicken, in the ye olde butcherde Englishe.

This chapter was more or less a slice-of-life chapter, intended to slow things down and set things up for the future. As noted in the last arc, Mal was considering implementing some cross-training of the crew so they can defend themselves better. I'm also working on reintegrating a lot of stuff from previous chapters and story arcs into this one.

And yes, River has a sword now. _A sword that tasers people_. Fire up them Holy Orders remixes, baby! Time to ride the lightning!_ (air guitars)_

If this chapter was too slow for you, don't worry. We're getting right back into it soon enough._  
_

Until next chapter . . . .


	51. Chapter Two: Transition

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* * *

**_Chapter Two: Transition_**

The infirmary felt unusually cold and sterile to Simon that morning. It wasn't just because of the standard disinfectant rub he'd given it recently, which he'd done mostly to get the tension out of his muscles. It was anxiety. He'd already finished packing up his medical kit with all the additional supplies he suspected they would need, so now he only had time to wait for them to get down to the surface.

Mal broke the news shortly after they'd changed course, but he'd made sure Book was there to give them the particulars. Jayne was a bit unhappy they were going to an Alliance-occupied world, and Simon was once more hit with that unsettling feeling of being in agreement with the mercenary, but he didn't outright object. They all understood how important this was to Shepherd Book.

That didn't mean Simon had to like it. They were all – or mostly, if one excepted Inara and Kaylee – wanted fugitives for one crime or another, so traveling to an Alliance-occupied planet under martial law wasn't the best of ideas. He'd confronted Mal with his concerns in the crew corridor, and as per the Captain's wont, Mal had led the doctor through half the ship during their discussion, which had ultimately amounted to "I'm the Captain, so we're going."

It didn't help that River and Kaylee apparently agreed.

River had been avoiding him for the last day they'd spent on the way to their destination, and Kaylee kept asking him for help with the engines or some other piece of equipment on the ship, when he wasn't taking care of his infirmary work. He was getting adept with mechanical work, though Simon knew he wasn't going to ever be as good with machines as Kaylee.

Now, as they got close to their destination, Simon found he had a moment between _preparing_ to dive into danger and actually doing so, and he resolved to make use of it.

The door to River's room was closed, but he knew she was in there. Simon knocked and called her name, and there was no response, so he gently slid the door open.

River was stretched out in the opposite corner of the room. Making this especially impressive was that this was the _ceiling_ corner. Her legs were braced against opposite walls, while one hand and her head were shoved up inside an opened ceiling panel. Loose brown hair hung down, her face out of sight.

"Um, River?" he asked. "What are you doing?"

"Preventative maintenance," she replied. "The ceiling is vibrating at a suboptimal level that is shaking several pipes that connect to the plasma vents. They will cause minor damage to the vent system in seventeen months if not properly aligned."

"I see," Simon said, following about half of what she was saying.

"Also, there are dust bunnies in the vents. I'm hunting them."

"Of course, that's much more important," Simon added, and her hair shifted, as if she were nodding. Suddenly, her legs shifted, her other arm flew up, and River hauled herself completely up inside the space over her room. He took a step into the room to follow her, but then her head and hair swung back down through the panel to face him.

"This will take a while," she said, eying him seriously while upside-down.

"Probably until we land," he guessed, and she nodded. He sighed, putting enough emphasis on it to make sure she knew he was joking, and sat down on her bed. "Fine. I can wait."

"You have doctor things to do," she protested, and disappeared up into the vent. Simon waited a moment before scanning around the room, and spotted the simple wooden scabbard against the wall. He stood up and walked over toward it. The moment his fingers touched it, he heard River move around somewhere up above, and her head swung back down. He picked up the sword, noting the U-shaped clamps attached to the mechanism on the scabbard, holding the weapon in place.

Her arm shot down toward the weapon, but Simon kept it back out of her reach with all the experience of a big brother, which earned him an annoyed glare.

A few moments of silence passed, and then that glare faded, replaced by something resembling guilt, and then River retreated back up into the crawlspace overhead. Simon waited for her to speak, but she said nothing, so he started instead.

"River, why didn't you come to me about this before?" he asked, sitting down on the bed, putting the weapon down beside him. A few seconds' silence passed, and then she emerged again, head and shoulders hanging down.

"It's not your business," she replied, and he blinked, taken a bit aback.

"River, I'm your brother," he said. "You could have told me you wanted to-"

"It would have made you worry," she said, and the faint smile faded to a frown, edged with a bit of tiredness. "And I'm an adult now. I am functional." She then withdrew back up into the ceiling, but her words echoed down through the panels. "I can make decisions for myself now."

Simon stared at the gap she'd disappeared into for a moment, and understood her meaning. She was developing properly into an adult, and Kaylee's words from before that he had to treat her like an adult instead of like a kid echoed back.

He'd said previously that she was a kid, and she just wanted to be a kid, but he understood that assessment was wrong. The fact that she'd left on her own to protect him and the rest of the crew on Silverhold was proof. The fact that she had to worry with her own biological cycle was more evidence. But the blade he was holding in his hand, locked by a security device she'd come up with on her own, confirmed it.

He stepped underneath the ceiling panel, and held the sheathed sword up. Her head poked around the edge, and she reached out to take the sword.

"You called it Laertes?" he asked as her fingers closed around the blade, and she pulled it up into the tiny crawlspace.

"After my brother," she said, and leaned over the edge. Her hand reached down and tousled his hair. "You are my Laertes."

Simon couldn't suppress his smile. He wanted to say more, to talk to his unusually distant sister, but the silence that followed was too pleasant to ruin.

"Hey, Doc," yell a voice behind him, in the hallway.

The Captain had a talent for ruining moments.

"Yes?" Simon said, turning to Mal, as he stepped into sight by the door.

"We're five from atmo, time to get ready for the big deception," Mal replied. He blinked, glancing around the room, and then looked up at the open ceiling panel, where River's hair dangled in view.

"Preventative maintenance," Simon explained as River's head emerged and she grinned at the Captain.

"Okay," Mal said, nodding because he didn't have the words or the time for the situation. "Come on, let's do the thing."

* * *

Everyone on board agreed that there would be some difficulty getting past inspection once they docked at Victoria. However, trouble hit them a little bit early, as _Serenity_ descended toward the moon, framed by the oily swirls of the gas giant Zeus behind it. As they approached, Wash caught sight of the immense specter of an Alliance cruiser looming over the moon, and a trio of smaller Alliance warships beyond. A cloud of sensor contacts told him that more than a thousand smaller military vessels – troop transports, fighter groups, supply vessels, and light frigates – were moving across this region of space.

An equal number of civilian ships were also vying for control of the same airspace, but they gave the military-controlled zones a wide berth, and Wash quickly found out why when his nav computer chirped. On the screen, he saw a series of sections of space marked by red and blue boundaries, indicating no-fly zones. A section of space lit up with a flashing green marker, indicating the areas he was cleared to pass thorough, uploaded automatically by some authority or other that he had no interest in flouting.

"No one's shooting at us yet?" came Mal's voice as he moved into the cockpit.

"Disappointing," Wash replied, trying to sound like he meant it. "They didn't even challenge us. Port control just gave me a flight path."

"Just because it's under martial law doesn't mean folks won't want to trade," Mal replied, and glanced back as Simon stepped onto the bridge, fiddling with the earpiece Mal had given him. Mal had one of his own, and through the radio he could hear voices in the cargo bay.

"You're certain this will work?" Wash asked, to which Mal nodded.

"Doc came up with the plan," he explained. "Established criminal genius and whatnot."

"It relies on simple psychology," Simon explained. "Reactionary adherence to authority is natural among Alliance officials. Act like you've got authority, and they're more willing to do as you request."

"Right, and the most authoritative soul on the boat is Zoë, followed by Book and Inara," Wash said, nodding.

"Hey," Mal said quickly.

"Most authoritative who with unpunchy urges," Wash corrected, and Mal nodded.

"Better." Mal glanced to the Doctor. "You know an awful lot about making Alliance folks hop to your tune."

"Yes," Simon replied, grunting as he worked on the radio in his ear. "I do." He didn't say anything else, and he didn't need to. Simon had a hell of a spine on him, they knew, and Wash suspected that his efforts at saving his sister had taught him a lot of the skills he'd turned to their benefit.

As they spoke, the Firefly had continued to descend toward the planet. A formation of fighters maneuvered past, each bristling with enough firepower to shatter the freighter to pieces, but paid them no attention.

"We could have gone with my idea," Wash mused quietly. "No need to risk the ship landing."

Wash's idea, in this case, had been to park _Serenity_ in orbit and send down the shuttle with just Book on it, plus whoever wanted to go with him. That was quashed when it turned out nearly everyone was volunteering to go with the Shepherd to help him investigate.

"I prefer having you on the ground," Mal said. "In case we need air support."

"In-atmosphere's no fly zones are enforced with orbital fire support," Wash replied. "I don't know how well I could back you up once you leave the areas around the space port."

"Better restricted than stuck in orbit," Mal replied. "And we couldn't smuggle guns down to the surface on the shuttle."

That was another issue: restricted firearms. Since the planet was under martial law, public display of guns was frowned strongly upon by the Alliance military, where it wasn't outright banned. But if Book was right on the folks who might have perpetrated the murders, they'd need as much firepower as they could muster. It would be harder to smuggle guns down to the moon's surface in a shuttle with passengers instead of a cargo ship carrying highly fake medical supplies.

The floating spires of the Alliance cruiser were now uncomfortably close in the viewports, which made Simon shy back a bit. A single telescope aimed at the bridge hooked up to some facial recognition software would ruin their day. Nothing of the sort happened, though, because as they well knew, the Alliance was too busy suppressing the unrest on the planet below to check every single ship passing through. Simply tapping into the communications channels proved that; a tidal wave of encrypted radio transmissions were rolling up from the planet as more than a three quarters of a million Alliance troops, police, and private security contractors tried to keep the world under control.

It wasn't enough, not by a long shot, and they knew it. The Alliance's force projection out this far was limited without a major military mobilization. Fully suppressing planetary unrest required ten times that many troops, which they just didn't have.

That was what they were counting on.

_Serenity_ descended into the atmosphere, and dropped toward one of the several major cities on Victoria's surface, a place called Olivet. Olivet was like a big brown and red blanket dropped over a beach ball, consisting of a mixture of wooden, brick, and clay buildings, most not more than three or four stories tall, sprawling around a tall hill in the middle of the city, where the spaceport was established. The streets, if one could call them that, were a mish-mash of wide boulevards, narrow alleys, and everything in between, broken and twisted in all directions.

"I can see how this place would suck up an occupying army," Wash muttered.

"Urban fighting in that place would be a nightmare," Mal agreed. "No one bothering us?"

"No one's noticed us," Wash replied. "I'm suspicious that they don't even have a port authority down there."

That suspicion faded as _Serenity_ descended toward a cleared spot in the docking facility at the top of the hill. It was a wide, circular landing bay of brown and white concrete designed to contain the explosion of a ship's drive engine, and waiting in the sheltered exit of the landing pad were a half dozen figures in armor and the familiar gray-blue uniforms of Alliance military.

Mal hurried down to the cargo bay, where Jayne, Zoë, and Book were waiting with a pallet of crates Mal used for smuggling contraband past customs, loaded onto the mule.

"What I don't get," Jayne was saying, "is why we ain't using the your special ID card to get us past customs."

"It'll draw attention," Book replied. "I do not want to draw attention to this."

"Can't you just order 'em to not say nothin'?" Jayne asked, to which Book shook his head.

"It doesn't quite work that way," he replied. "Too much oversight." Jayne grunted, but said nothing further as he climbed into the mule's driver seat.

"We good to go?" Mal asked as he approached Zoë, who nodded.

"Yes sir," she replied, and tapped her ear. "Coming through loud and clear."

"Alright, let's do this," Mal said, and stepped across the bay to slap the airlock button. The exterior ramp dropped and the inner doors opened, and a rush of too-warm-for-the-season air came into the bay, along with the familiar myriad stenches of docking bays in a squalor-ridden city.

And then Mal got a good look at something he rarely got a chance to see lately: Zoë taking charge.

"Come on, Dutch, get that thing moving!" she yelled, and her voice carried an authority that made Mal want to instinctively disobey due to his natural contrariness, as she walked down the ramp. "We've got people dying, I need this stuff delivered three days ago!"

The mule started moving, only it was moving directly toward the pair of Alliance officers and their armed escort. Mal noticed the troops' harried expressions, and those doubled over when they realized the crew of the ship they'd come to meet was already in a rush.

"Excuse me," Mal quickly apologized, moving to meet them as Zoë led the mule down the ramp, apparently not giving a damn about the presence of a port authority.

"Are you Captain-"

"Buck. Yes, I am," Mal said quickly. "Sorry, the Doctor's in a bit of a rush to get this stuff moving."

"I can understand that," the harried officer said, "I just need documentation and to inspect-"

"Captain Buck, is this port authority?" Zoë barked, walking over. Her aggressive gait and the look on her face made Mal take an instinctive step backwards.

"Yes ma'am, we need-"

"Documents," she snapped, handing over a pair of sheets of paper. She didn't say anything else, and instead let the officers check the papers authenticating a medical delivery to Victoria – documents forged by Jayne and Simon, of course.

This was the important part, where they had to play everything right. If she pushed the authoritative impatience too far, it might trigger the opposite reaction they wanted from the Alliance officers, which was to quietly agree and move along.

"The documents don't specify what medicine is being delivered," the officer said, looking up. Zoë sighed, closing her eyes, and rubbed the side of her temple, as if she was having a migraine.

In reality, she was listening to Simon speaking through the radio link.

"Tritovalin, isoprovaline, and pascalin-D," she said, and grabbed one of the documents. She pointed at a line, listing the medicines' names. "Right there."

"I apologize, Doctor ," the inspector said. "Where is this medicine being delivered-"

Another flash of annoyed migraine, and Zoë snatched the documents away again, and jabbed her finger at another point.

"Right there," she said. "Rustlung infection from terraforming operations. Antibiotics for seventeen different types of infection, same location. General surgical supplements and painkillers. Same location." She handed it back, with just enough migraine –generated annoyance to get the point across, and then looked back to the mule.

"Dutch, what the hell are you doing!" she yelled, and started off after the mule.

"Is there, ah, anything else, gentlemen?" Mal asked a couple of seconds later.

"No, I don't think so," the officer said quickly, as Zoë started berating Jayne loudly and colorfully for his apparent incompetence. "Your vessel is cleared here for four days' berth time."

"Thanks," Mal said, nodding and plastering on his best fake smile, and the port authority troops hurried to leave before the enraged, pregnant doctor with the migraines could further berate them for their incompetence.

Of course, Simon and Jayne had worked hard to make the documents difficult to read while still fitting appearances, just to make sure they could make the Alliance officer look like idiots who couldn't read a shipping manifest. It was kind of frightening what those two could do when they worked together.

"They're gone," Mal called as soon as the officers were out of sight, and the masquerade ended immediately. "Alright, let's get everything ready to go. I'll go rustle up some transport, soon as I know where we're heading." He glanced to Book, who was coming down the ramp.

"You do know where we're heading, right?"

* * *

There wasn't a local communications terminal in the bay, like there were on most planets with port authorities like Persephone. Instead, Mal and Book headed for a central terminal in the port's communications center, which was a big, domed building in the middle of the facility. It was packed with ship captains and crew either trying to register their ships, get maintenance work done, contact their buyers or sellers, and do all the other necessary work that needed to be done at a port. The two men found their way to an unused terminal sandwiched between a few service desks, and the pulled up the global map.

"You know where this village is?" Mal asked, to which Book shook his head.

"The Alliance officer I spoke to didn't give me coordinates, or even a name," he said. "But I think I know the general area where it might be."

"Yeah?" Mal asked, looking up and scanning the comms center. He spotted a pair of Alliance troops moving through the room, but otherwise there were only a few local port security officers and a whole lot of spacers, ubiquitous in their mixture of long coats, open vests, or rugged jackets and the abundance of personal sidearms they carried in spite of martial law.

"Father Forthill had established a church here, a mid-sized abbey," Book mused as he started searching the map, typing in names and coordinates. "A bit off the beaten path, but it is in the area where they said the village had been located. It might do us to go there first, get some information."

"Good idea," Mal said, agreeing. "Might we could use that place to-"

"Malcolm Reynolds!"

A gigantic bear arm slapped down on his shoulder and spun him around. For half a second, Mal let out an unmanly "Gaaaah!" of panic before his brain caught up and recognized the voice yelling his name, as the man towered over him.

"Monty!" he gasped in surprise, a moment before he was smothered half-to-death by the huge smuggler's bear hug. He took a breath once he was released, and grinned like an idiot. "What are you doing here?"

"Grounded," the huge said, drawing the word out. Mal gave him a once over, noting that his semi-balding head still held that long mane of wild hair, and his beard was growing back to respectable lengths.

"That's crap," Mal said, surprised. "Alliance?"

"Trying to find something to move, actually," Monty said, shrugging. "The Feds are limiting what we can carry. Can't find anything worth the fuel to lift off this rock."

"So you're just hanging around this dustball waiting for prospects?" Mal asked.

"Hell no!" Monty said, and then grinned. "We're getting drunk as hell, that's what we're doing!"

Mal couldn't help but laugh. Monty may not have been the brightest pirate out there, but he was competent at his job, and more importantly, he knew how to enjoy himself.

"Also, I managed to . . . Well, got my hands on this special Alliance charter . . . ."

"What kind of charter?" Mal asked, curious.

"Charter that lets me bypass customs here," Monty said with a grin. "I'm a fine, upstanding citizen. Ap_par_ently."

Mal had to chuckle again, because he knew exactly what Monty was doing with this charter he'd gotten. He had no idea how his old friend had managed to weasel something like that, but Mal was going to have to see about looking into getting one for himself.

"How did you get that?"

"A little bribe here, a little work there," Monty said, and shrugged. "Did some favors for a fella on Greenleaf. Got him some stuff he couldn't find otherwise, and he gave me a charter that lets me bypass customs on certain planets.

"What about you, what are you doing here?" Monty then said, and added a swift backslap as punctuation.

"Personal matter," Mal said, and gestured to Book, who was engrossed with the terminal. "Helping one of my crew with some trouble he's having."

"I can understand that," Monty said. "This whole planet is going nuts. Never really did buckle down under the Alliance, and after that Miranda business it's just gotten worse." He paused, and then spoke quietly. "Just got done running some weapons to these folks. Using my special charter. Paid a good fortune."

"Well, that's reason enough to clear out of here," Mal suggested, also quietly. "Not a good idea to stick around after moving contraband like that."

"Yeah, we're probably pulling out in the next day or so, if we can't find any prospects," Monty added.

"Captain," Book said, cutting in on the conversation. "Pardon me, but I found what we were looking for."

"Alright," Mal said. "Well, gotta get moving again, Monty," he added, and the big smuggler's hand engulfed his.

"Hey, you need me, Mal, I'll probably be here in port," he said. "You take care!"

"You too, Monty! Don't get into too much trouble!" The old friends split apart, and as they walked away, Mal turned toward Book. "You know where we're headed?"

"Yes," Book said. "Golden Phoenix Abbey of the Resurrection of the Son."

"Mouthful of a name."

"Forthill always favored extra syllables," Book agreed. "There's a train station about five kilometers from the abbey, and the abbey is about three kilometers east of the village."

"Sounds good," Mal said. "Let's rustle up a train, see if we can get a cargo box for the mule."

"We're taking the mule?"

"I ain't walkin'," Mal replied, and Book nodded in agreement.

* * *

The crew assembled in the bay an hour later, and Mal went over the basics of the plan.

"We'll load up the mule with all the weapons we can spare that those who are going can use," Mal said. "We have no idea what the _tyen-shiao-duh_ we're going to be dealing with is, so we're going in heavy. You want to go with me and Shepherd Book, you're welcome, but if you want to stay with the ship, that's fine too."

"Like hell we're letting' you two run out alone," Jayne grunted. "I'm goin'."

"Me too," Zoë said, her tone not brooking any argument.

"I will too," Simon said. "If there are any survivors, they'll need medical examination." He left out the fact that the others might need medical assistance too, but that didn't need to be spoken.

"So am I," Inara added. Mal was about to object, but doing so would make him trip over his own words. And besides, Inara was a decent hand in a fight. She'd proven herself before, and he wouldn't deny her.

Mal glanced to River, who said nothing. She was holding Laertes in one hand, and that was all that he needed to know.

"If Simon's goin', so'm I!" Kaylee added.

"Yeah, me too," Wash finished.

"No, not for you two," Mal said quickly. Before they could protest, he continued. "I need someone to watch the ship, as I don't trust this town, and I want a tall card in my sleeve." Wash and Kaylee were about to protest anyway, but their arguments died before they could speak. Mal continued on in the silence.

"We're going to be taking the mule there, but I've arranged for some extra transport to the church, since I figured most of us were going and the mule only holds five. Train leaves in a couple of hours, so get what you're expecting you'll need out there together for the trip."

* * *

The train itself was eerily familiar, at least to Mal and Zoë. It had that dim-lit, stuffy interior of most hovertrains that operated away from high, civilized life, and both the seats and the walls had seen much better days. At least they didn't have Alliance troops shooting at them this time. In fact, with the exception of _Serenity's_ crew, the train was almost empty.

"Don't usually have much folks going this far out anyway," said the train's engineer, a man who, in the nautical days on Earth That Was, would have been called "salty." Out here, he was just "dusty." He was thickset yet clean-shaven, and wore an orange cap with some kind of enormous black goggles over his eyes. "Now there ain't nobody taking the passenger trains with the war going on."

Mal and Zoë, along with the rest of the crew, had claimed the first car, which was fine by the train's engineer, who was standing in the doorway running to the engine car. Apparently, the thing ran so smoothly he didn't need to keep a constant watch on it. Zoë and Mal were listening to the dusty engineer drawl along while the others lounged about. Book and Inara were chatting among themselves, Jayne was engaging in his usual obsessive maintenance of their weapons, and Simon was keeping River from sticking her head out the window.

"You heard any news from out the way we're going?" Mal asked, sitting on the table by the booth next to the front door. The engineer shrugged.

"I run some folks for the Blue Sun hydroponics facilities out there, every month or so," he said. "Haven't had to do that for the last two months though. Last group I took out there was a bit . . . ." he frowned. "Couldn't remember much about 'em." He scratched his chin. "I know some folk out there were taking about the Alliance sending a mercenary company in to keep the locals under control."

"Mercs," Zoë echoed, glancing to Mal, who nodded.

"Got any idea how many?" Mal asked.

"Few hundred, what I heard," the engineer said. "I didn't bother about it. Not my way to mess with mean hubbards like that. Had enough of that during the war."

"Fought in the war?" Mal asked, and the engineer shrugged.

"Militia, fighting pirates mostly," he said. "Didn't see much fighting with either side of the war, not until the Browncoats lost and the Alliance came out this way." He grunted. "Victoria never liked knuckling down under anybody, Independent _or_ Alliance."

_And Miranda is giving them an opportunity to make life difficult for the Alliance_, Mal mused.

"So, why ya'll heading out there?" the engineer asked. "Ain't a safe place for a small group like yourselves."

"Friend of ours died," Zoë explained. "Come out to pay respects."

"You're going a long way to visit a grave," the engineer said. "Got my sympathies."

"Yeah, thanks," Mal said, nodding. He suspected they'd be filling some more graves before this was over with.

* * *

There were a pair of ATVs waiting at the station, which Mal had rented ahead of time. They were the best transport he could get out here and, per his duty as Captain, he took one of the bumpy, uncomfortable vehicles as his ride. Jayne reluctantly volunteered for the second, muttering under his breath about their cheap-as-hell Captain.

"You coulda walked," Mal replied as the rest of the crew got the mule out of the cargo car, moving it down a ramp that extended from the side of the compartment. Once they were loaded up with their crates of supplies and baggage, they started moving. The new mule could handle a lot more weight, but didn't have the seats or the power to handle all seven of them plus their gear.

The dusty stretches of recently-terraformed land rolled past, the landscape and ecology still settling in after having been introduced a generation ago. With the exception of the small train station and a few wooden cabins springing up around it to service the minimal commerce passing through, there was little sign of civilization. They followed a long, packed-dirt road running north toward the jagged peaks of several particularly tall mountains, occasionally spotting windmills or solar panels in the distance. At one point, they noted a large solar farm, with three square kilometers of reflective panels set up on a particularly flat stretch of ground, but no other signs of humanity.

"Preacher, you sure this church of yours is out here?" Zoë asked as they passed into the foothills, which were gradually rising into more rocky terrain.

"Absolutely," Book said. "It's a bit off the beaten path, but that's what Forthill preferred."

The road ran through a trail heading into the mountains, and as they entered the rockier regions, some more vegetation began to make itself known. They continued along, following what looked like a natural cleft in the ancient stone, and as _Serenity's_ crew rounded a bend in the path, they came into sight of a wide canyon in the rock, where the "Golden Phoenix Abbey of the Resurrection of the Son" resided.

The abbey was set into the canyon, whose walls stretched out wide to either side, nearly a kilometer across. It was almost like a fortress, a square of tall, gray stone walls matching the landscape around it, each corner dotted with a stone cross. They were high enough up that they could see the outer walls ringed a courtyard, and each corner of the abbey was actually a building, will the walls forming the connections between them. An enormous chapel sat in the center of the courtyard, a tall spire rising up above the landscape. Stained glass windows were apparent in each of the buildings making up the abbey, and a series of breezeways ran through the courtyard. Green vegetation – a few tilled fields, a small orchard, and some wild forest – surrounded the imposing gray structure, and the road ran across the distance, cleaving a narrow path through the young woods.

As they drew closer, the crew could see figures in the fields - workers tending to the crops. It quickly became apparent that the approaching visitors had been spotted in turn, as one of the workers pointed at the approaching vehicles. Another turned and hurried inside the abbey, but he wasn't running like someone bringing news.

He was running with that desperate, frightened gait of someone trying to bring a warning.

"That ain't like to be a good sign," Mal murmured, voice lost under the working engines of their vehicles. He gestured for Zoë to move the mule up toward the road alongside the workers in the fields, who by now were close enough that they could make out the nearest men's expressions. Mal could tell they were wary and alert, though they were all wearing work clothes and none of them were apparently armed.

A little closer, and Mal could see the white collars they all wore, indicating men of the Book, and now they were all looking up, watching the newcomers. Mal ordered them to stop about quarter of a kilometer away from the abbey, which put them about twenty meters away from the nearest worker, who was walking toward them.

Mal dismounted, along with Shepherd Book and Jayne, while the others stayed on the mule. He walked toward the man approaching, a middle-aged priest with speckles of silver in dark hair and the weathered features of a man who'd spent most of his life on the Border. They stopped about five meters apart, the priest regarding Mal and his crew warily.

"Hi there," Mal said after a few seconds, smashing the tension.

"Hello," greeted the priest. "What brings you folks out here?"

Mal was about to speak, but Book cut in, and the Captain was glad to let him take over the conversation.

"We're here to play respects to a friend who recently passed away," the Shepherd said, and stepped forward, extending his hand. "Shepherd Derrial Book." The other priest regarded him for a moment, even while taking his hand.

"Father McCauliffie," the other priest replied, and then smiled a little bit. "You've come an awful distance for a funeral, and no one's died here recently."

The way he said those last words sounded a tiny bit uncomfortable to Mal, who'd been bamboozled by the best liars in the 'Verse. McCauliffie wasn't among that lot.

"His name was Forthill," Book said. McCauliffie's eyes widened, and his breathing paused for a moment.

That was all Mal needed.

"Look, Father," he said, stepping forward, but quietly signaling for Jayne to stay put. "My name is Captain Malcolm Reynolds. We've heard some things that have happened out these ways, and we know what happened to Father Forthill. We're not here to cause trouble or nothing. We're here to find out what happened, and see to it them that did this pay up."

McCauliffie glanced back and forth between Book and the Captain, and Mal could see he was weighing their words, their appearance, and whatever he knew about the situation. Finally, he turned to Book.

"Shepherd Book," he said, "John spoke of you sometimes. He said you came from the Westbrook Abbey."

"Southdown," Book replied immediately, correcting him. "That was where I stayed at for several years."

McCauliffie nodded, and looked down at the ground for a second. He whispered something, and then looked up.

"I get the feeling we can trust you folks," he said. "Let's go inside, Shepherd. We can help you look into this."

It was a few minutes later that the mule and their ATVs were parked inside a small garage, which was more of a canvas-covered carport than an actual building. A couple of heavy-duty ground-cars were parked in there too, enough to carry a dozen people. Mal led the rest of his crew inside the modest wooden double-doors of the abbey, and walked into a cool, open breezeway of that slate-gray stone the buildings were made out of. Father McCauliffie led them down the breezeway, and the crew followed silently until they reached the chapel in the middle of the courtyard.

McCauliffie opened the doors, and the first thing Mal saw was the barrel of a rifle, mostly because it was pointed at his face. He jerked to a halt, but didn't move any further; getting a gun shove din his face was common enough. This didn't rattle him, anymore than the bearded man with hard arms and weathered knuckles holding the weapon. A second later, after McCauliffie whispered to the man, the old bolt-action rifle – a conventional slugthrower, not a charge-shot weapon like Mal's crew carried – was lowered.

"I apologize," McCauliffie said. "Please, step inside."

Mal walked inside, hand not-quite resting on his pistol, but it came away as soon as he entered the chapel and saw what was inside.

There were maybe fifty people in there, about a dozen men, and mostly women and young girls, and a few children. Most of them were bedraggled, dressed in button-down cotton shirts or long cotton dresses, hand-made clothes suiting out-of-the-way villagers in this season on this world. All of the men were armed, most of them were battered and weary, and to the man, they were terrified.

"It's okay, everyone," McCauliffie said, his voice reassuring. He then turned toward Mal and Book. "Captain, Shepherd, you said you came here to find Father Jonathan Forthill."

He gestured to the people behind him.

"These souls were the last to see him alive. They were the only ones who survived the attack on their village."

"You're protecting them," Mal said, noting more than one of the armed men were wearing priest collars.

"Yes," McCauliffie said. "We know that the men who attacked their homes will come again. Victoria is a warzone, Captain, and you and yours just walked into one of the battlefields."

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**This chapter was a little shorter than usual, if only because it became a _lot _bigger than I'd estimated, and thus necessitated being split into two chapters lest it become just too damned big. So as a result, the action is going to be delayed a bit. This story is going to have a lengthy build-up before we get to the real action; there's at least one more chapter, probably two, before things really pick up.

As some of you have probably noted, there's a point to that file decryption going on at the top of each chapter. It will become apparent what relevance that has later. Also, as a preventative measure and a favor to other readers, I would ask that anyone who does figure out what is going on in this story in future chapters to please not spoil it in the reviews until this particular story arc is over. Feel free to speculate, but this is sort of a mystery arc, and if you think you've figured it out, PM me. I'll give you an idea of how close you are :P

Until next chapter....


	52. Chapter Three: Starlight

**File Reconstruction 27% Complete**

**Pro$ect (erb5154: Cer^Ebg - Enh#0c^len()*!m^%1 !+*^%$*n S%$t&m**

**Psy$%!*&) b$3o*e**

**T?st Ju65ec!- $n!ub#r 000-91^ - WaNA, 49#$ry!**

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* * *

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_**Chapter Three: Starlight**_

The chapel had been built to hold a congregation of at most forty people, and thus the whole village had been crowded a bit inside. However, once the apparent danger had passed, the survivors seemed reluctant to leave, so Father MacCauliffie led _Serenity's_ crew and the three senior men in the village outside to the courtyard where they could talk.

"We need to know what's happened, if we're gonna be helping you folks," Mal asked the village "elders." They'd gathered in a sitting area with stone benches, and most of the crew were sitting or standing, save for Jayne, who was slouching against a pillar for the nearest breezeway, Vera slung across his chest.

"You'll have to forgive my reluctance here," said the village "elder", Pherson. He was a middle-aged man, muscled and hardened by decades of tough Border living. Mal noted grimly that the other two "seniors" were about the same age, and there were no real elderly people among the survivors. "We were holding out for . . . other help."

"From the Alliance?" barked one of the other leaders, a tough, bearded man who looked like he had an intimate relationship with alcohol, judging by his gut. "They're not for helping us folks."

"Normally, I'd agree," Mal said quickly. "'Cepting it was Alliance who told us what happened."

That did not get Mal the look he was expecting, which was at least interest or thoughtfulness. Instead, the expressions on all three "elders'" faces became openly hostile.

"The animals that attacked us worked for the Alliance," hissed Pherson.

"You don't know that they were working under Alliance orders," MacCauliffie said, arms firmly crossed.

"Like hell we don't!" snarled the third "elder" a whipcord-thin man with no hair and the ruddy, soot-stained face of a workman who dealt with machinery.

"Whoa now, hold on a second," Mal said, raising a hand to cut off an argument. "Go back to them folks attacked you. Who were they?"

"Mercenaries," snarled Pherson. "Murdering animals working under the Alliance."

"One of the private security companies the Alliance contracted to police the Border," Book mused. The elders nodded grimly.

"Looks like they're doing work on the side," Zoë said.

"Ya'll know which one?" Jayne asked, pushing off the pillar.

"No," Pherson replied. "Their symbol was a wing and a claw, both red. We saw it on their ships when they flew by overhead."

"They wearing black and gray armor?" Jayne asked, frowning.

"Yes," nodded the skinny little man. "Black armor, some aircraft. Huge guns, tore the rooftops off our houses."

"Skyhawk Intervention," Jayne said, nodding. His tone made it clear he knew without question. "Talon Company."

"Jayne, you know these _hun dans_?" Mal asked.

"Ran into 'em once or twice," he muttered, and his fingers tapped Vera a couple of times, making it clear when. "Those folks are bad news."

"Go on, Jayne," Mal said, curious.

"Skyhawk's a big merc outfit," Jayne said. "Mostly they just coordinate. There's a bunch of different companies under them. Each company does it's own thing, Skyhawk just keeps 'em sorted out and gets contracts. The Talons are bad folks, though, even among mercs." He nodded grimly toward the elders. "This ain't the worst they done. Ain't as bad as Reavers, but you can mention 'em in the same breath."

"How many?" Zoë asked, to which Jayne glanced toward the elders.

"We counted at least a hundred men," Pherson said. "Maybe more."

"Definitely more'n that," Jayne said. "Leave some men back at the camp to protect it."

Mal ran a hand over his mouth, considering this bit of news.

"Okay, I need to think on this for a bit," Mal said. "Come up with some ideas."

"Why are we listening to them?" demanded the bearded elder. "He could be working for these murderers! Hell, he said the Alliance sent them here!"

A wave of anger welled up inside Mal, strong and fierce, and he took a step toward the bearded idiot.

"I am not a _gorram_ Fed!" Mal snarled, glaring at the man, but the fellow was made of stern stuff, because even the second best Captain's Glare didn't faze him.

"I agree," Pherson added. "I don't trust any of you. I say we throw them out."

"This sanctuary is under my jurisdiction, Pherson," MacCauliffie said. "I say who-"

"Are you gonna let the mercs come back and-"

"_Bi zui!" _Inara snapped.

It wasn't loud, and it wasn't forceful, but there was some way in which she pitched her voice that cut through the argument and drew everyone's attention to her. The Companion rose and stepped forward, pointedly moving between Mal and the village elders. She regarded both of them with an even glare that seemed both reasonable and admonishing.

"Elders," she said, offering them a smile and s light inclination of her head. "I must apologize for any misconceptions we may have brought about. I assure you, we have come here in good faith to investigate this crime and to bring those responsible to justice. Barring that, we want to help you. I can understand your mistrust, but I believe it is being misdirected."

Elder Pherson frowned, rubbing his face, and glanced to his comrades. After a couple of seconds of thinking, he nodded, his face shifting from distrust to wariness.

"Alright," he said. "Ya'll do seem on the level. What are ya'll suggesting we do?"

"Well," Mal said, having to switch gears at the unexpected shift in appreciation. He knew Inara was good at shifting people's opinions, but _wow_. "We need to know what happened. If these Talon boys are as bad as Jayne says they are, and are as well-armed as we're suspecting, I don't want to go in blind."

The elders nodded in grudging agreement. Mal was still confused on that; they'd shifted far too quickly from combative disagreement to wary acceptance.

"We'll tell you everything we know," remarked the whipcord fellow. "Anything that can help."

"Meantime," Mal said, and glanced to Simon, "Doc, if you'd do your thing?"

"A doctor?" said the bearded man, his face lighting up a bit. "Oh, thank the Lord. Some of our folks are hurt bad from the raid."

"If you'll show me, please," Simon said, hefting his bag, and followed the bearded fellow as he went back to the chapel.

"I'll go with 'em," Zoë said, rising. "Doctor might need an assistant." As she followed after them, Mal turned to Pherson.

"Alright, then," he said. "Tell me what happened."

Pherson explained it in as best detail he could, still wary and untrusting, but forthcoming enough. Unfortunately, Mal had encountered the fog of war firsthand, and he knew that disciplined soldiers got the details muddied in the chaos of combat; panicking civilians were lucky to get something vaguely resembling the truth.

From what Pherson said, Talon aircraft had come out of nowhere one day, surrounding the village and opening up with machineguns and smoke grenades. Mal made a note of that. After the initial assault, the Talons had withdrawn, then come back a few hours later. This time, the villagers were ready and fought back. Talon soldiers had dismounted, exchanged gunfire with the villagers, and withdrawn.

Then, they'd come back with full force, destroying a couple of houses and driving the villagers back. They'd moved into the village on foot, killing any adults they encountered and grabbing the children. Several dozen villagers had managed to escape in the confusion, gathered outside the village, and fled to the abbey to seek sanctuary. Shepherd MacCauliffie had given them his protection when they arrived.

"Sounds like slavers," Book said, voice tinged with distaste. He, Mal, and Inara had remained to speak with the elders, while Jayne and River had moved off to check their surroundings.

"If they were slavers, they wouldn't be killing everyone," Mal said. "They're just targeting kids."

"They hit the Blue Sun building too," Pherson added. "Killed everyone there. But that was after they hit the village."

"This doesn't add up," Inara mused, and Mal nodded.

"Give me and mine a bit to think on this," he said, standing up. "We'll figure out what to do."

* * *

The injuries were mixed, and hit all the myriad traumas Zoë had seen in the war. She saw broken bones, shrapnel lacerations, a couple of bullet wounds, and more than one laser burn mark. Mixed in with that were a number of illnesses, and plentiful scrapes, bruises, and cuts that ran the risk of infection. Zoë and Simon moved among the survivors, with the Doctor focusing on the most serious wounds, while Zoë handled the less severe cases.

As they moved through the chapel, Zoë saw other injuries that were just as bad, but not physical. There was fear, weariness, and that shell-shocked look she'd encountered often enough from civilians whose homes were ruined by war. These villagers had their entire lives shattered without warning by a gang of profiteering mercenaries, and that fact sent a cold, quiet anger trickling through her.

The children were the worst. There were so few of them, but they all had been hurt badly, even if it wasn't physical, and most of them had lost parents. With each child she saw, her anger grew harder and colder. She knew that this wasn't just outrage at what these Talon soldiers had done, but also due to her maternal instincts. Children had been hurt, and every part of her was telling her to stop the pain and to help them.

That cold understanding did nothing to alleviate the quiet hatred she was feeling. It was the same frigid rage she'd felt when Wash had been hurt by the Reavers' spear, or when she'd seen him in Niska's clutches.

At the back of the chapel was a little girl, maybe eight or nine years old, with limp, blood-matted black hair a bandage wrapped around her upper arm. Zoë was changing it for a clean one and applying some antiseptic to the gash, but the girl was barely responding, and instead staring off past her. Zoë wasn't certain whether it was PTSD, grief, both, or worse that had affected the girl.

"What's your name?" she asked as she changed the bandage, just as she'd asked the other children. The girl blinked, and her eyes fixed on Zoë.

"Katie," the girl whispered. Her voice was raspy, as if her throat was dry, and Zoë found herself reaching for her canteen. She held it up for the girl, who took it and opened it up, sipping from the plastic bottle. "Thank you."

"I'm Zoë," she said. "Are you hurt anywhere else?" Katie shook her head, and looked away to the rest of the chapel. A sinking feeling settled into Zoë as she noted the way the girl was looking, and how she was sitting alone. Most of the parents were sitting close to or holding their children.

"Where's your mother and father?" she asked. Katie looked back to Zoë, and the girl shivered a little bit.

"Daddy worked at the Blue Sun building," she said. "I haven't seen him since . . . since we got here."

Zoë debated whether to give the girl false hope by suggesting he was alive, but the look on Katie's face told her that the girl knew her father was dead. More importantly, Zoë wasn't going to give her false hope and dash it later. Instead, she simply reached up and stroked the girl's head comfortingly, like she'd often done for Wash.

In fact, there was something in the way the girl looked around at her surroundings, and at Zoë, that reminded her of her husband in the darker moments.

"Are you here to help us?" Katie asked quietly, and there was a hint of something else in there: a twinge of hope.

"Yeah," Zoë said, nodding, the cold anger inside of her mixing with determination to protect these children. "We're here to help."

* * *

"You're brown."

Jayne grunted. He stood on the vaulting rooftop of the abbey's walls, the singles coming together at a point, forcing him to stand at an angle as he walked along the rooftop. They were scoping out the landscape around the building from a good vantage point.

Or, that was the plan. In reality, he had River calling him colors.

"What kind of brown?" Jayne asked. In the past he'd just ignore her or give her a properly rude response, but nowadays he tried guessing at her meanings when she didn't speak clearly.

"Uncertain," she said, walking by him. She had a sash around her waist that the sword sheath was tied to. He tried to ignore the fact that it helped emphasize her hips as she walked. "Unclear. Muddy." She frowned, shielding her eyes with her hand. "I'm not sure if that's because what you're actually thinking, or just because of association."

Jayne grunted. Again. It was his best response to her jabbering while he tried to make sense of it.

Truth was, the real reason he'd come up here wasn't to just check things out. He'd also come up here to get away from the villagers. The folks in the abbey brought back bad memories.

He didn't want to remember Higgin's Moon. He didn't want to remember Stitch. And he damn well didn't want to remember those mudders.

River stared at him for a moment while he tried pushing those memories back, and then her face screwed up in a grimace before she turned away. He guessed she meant it as an apology.

They continued along the rooftop, River leading, and Jayne following behind, both surveying the landscape and Jayne doing his damndest to keep from watching River's hips. Sure, the _gorram_ girl was old enough and clear-headed enough, but she'd get him killed if he-

She looked back at him, and gave him a knowing smile.

"Whaddya think we're gonna do?" Jayne asked, changing the subject. Normally when he thought dirty about her – or any woman – she got flushed and embarrassed.

"Don't know," she replied, peering back over the terraformed landscape. "Not enough concrete data to formulate a plan."

"Well, what can you tell about them folks from the town?" Jayne asked. She frowned, mulling over it a bit, and then shrugged and remained silent.

Jayne glanced at her, puzzled. River wasn't excessively talkative, but she still had plenty to babble about when someone asked her a question about folks. He'd never seen her _shrug_ before.

"We have work to do," she said, and started walking along the roof again, this time balancing on the peak, arms spread out and wavering as she moved.

"Them Talons come here, it's gonna be rough," Jayne muttered.

"Worse have crashed against our walls," she said. "We have endured."

"Yeah, but just by a hair," Jayne muttered. "Mal's right. We cut it close too much sometimes."

She was silent for a few moments, instead continuing to balance along the spine of the roof. Finally, she stopped and spun to face him.

"We survive together," she said. "You and me and the rest of the crew. We carry each other when we can't crawl."

The girl was getting annoyingly optimistic. Or maybe Jayne just wanted to bitch some more, but he shrugged and agreed to end that line of unpleasant thought. River turned away and kept up the balancing act. A few meters later, she wobbled for a bit, arms pinwheeling, but she recovered herself before she fell over.

"You don't do that," Jayne grumbled.

"Why not?"

"You fall down and die, I'll have to clean it up," Jayne said.

She giggled, and kept balancing her way across the rooftop, with Jayne following.

* * *

_Serenity_ was silent, save for the cacophony of battle and the screams of the dying.

"You will suffer for your betrayal!"

"I have never suffered before, and your scaly vengeance will not make me . . . suffer at all! Yes!"

"This land is ours! I will fight you until-"

"Wash?"

"Gah!"

Wash jerked in surprise. He was crouching beside the table in the dining room, several pots and pans flipped over to provide makeshift hills. His dinosaurs were positioned strategically across the table.

The pilot had been halfway beneath the table, peering at his panorama of battling dinosaurs atop cookware, when Kaylee walked into the dining room.

"Ah, Kaylee. Um. Hi."

"Bored?" she asked.

"Epically."

"Mm-hmm," she replied, nodding and walking by on the way to the engine. "Someone needs to keep an eye on the sensors."

"I've got 'em set to ding if anything weird happens," he replied. She mumbled something and kept walking. Once she was out of the room, Wash crouched again, peering intently at his dinosaurs, and then shot a hand out, grabbing a pterodactyl.

"You will feel the wrath of the traitors!" he hissed. "Suffer my power! Falcon kick!"

"But you're not even a bird!"

"Semantics! Semantics in your face! Graaaaah!"

* * *

The abbey had a modest kitchen and dining area, which was built to handle maybe twenty people at most, and usually only held half that many. Between _Serenity's_ crew, the village elders and a couple of other folks from the town, and MacCauliffie and his priests, the dining area was crowded enough to make Jayne ornery and both the Tams uncomfortable. It didn't help that there were several of the children eating in the room.

Mal stood in the middle of the dining area, preparing to address the gathered people.

"I'm not the sort to exactly mince words, and I do a bad job when I try, so I'm gonna be straight," Mal said. "From what my crew's been telling me and the stories ya'll have told on the attack, these folks we're dealing with aren't too friendly. We got every reason to think they're still looking for you folks."

"We don't know that," Zoë pointed out. She was sitting across from Mal with one of the few children, a dark-haired girl whose name Mal missed, sitting on the floor below her. He nodded at her assessment.

"Right, could be they got finished when they hit the last time, and are moving on, but we've got to assume they're still looking for the rest of ya'll," Mal continued. "Just to be on the safe side."

"What about the children they took?" asked Pherson. "We need to get our babies back!" Murmurs and yells of assent came from the villagers, but Mal found himself disagreeing internally.

"We're considering that. Jayne, how many mercs in these Talons?" Mal asked.

"Hundred at least, what the folks said," he grumbled. "Most like a hundred and sixty, last I heard."

"And they've got military grade firepower," Book added. "Bit much for us to handle, with only a few rifles and a grenade launcher."

"Agreed," Mal said. "Jayne, you and River took a look around. How well-fortified is this place?"

"Stone is solid, can hold up to most weapons," Jayne said, and nodded to father MacCaullifie. "Built strong and well. They'll need tanks to bust through here, and Talons didn't have tanks last I checked. Got some clear lines of sight, but those trees to the north and east can provide cover."

"If they attack, they'll likely go for infantry through the trees," Zoë added. "Maybe an airborne assault on the courtyard."

"We'll see that coming clear as day," Jayne said. "Put a watch on the roof, they'll see anyone coming in."

"Good idea," Mal said. "But we still don't know much about the Talons or why they're attacking."

"We know exactly why," Pherson snarled. "They're slavers!"

"If they wanted to do a slave run, they wouldn't be killing the adults," Zoë said. "They'd round up everyone instead of just the children."

"We need to get a better accounting of what we're up against," Mal agreed. "I'm thinking when daytime comes, we go to the village and have a look around, see what we can find."

"Not tonight?" MacCaullifie asked. "You'll be harder to see."

"Talons have night vision gear," Jayne replied. "We don't."

"Trust me, we know a thing or two about fighting people with higher tech," Mal said. "I'll take the recon team, one or two people out there. We'll leave the rest of the crew here to keep everyone safe."

"Captain," Book said, "I'll go with you to the village, if you don't mind."

"Alright," Mal said with a nod. "Zoë and Jayne will stay here." He wanted the big guns protecting the village, and while he'd usually take Zoë with him on a recon run, her obvious and growing pregnancy was getting him concerned.

He paused, debating whether to take River with him. She might be able to pick something up, but the prospect of bringing her to a place where so many people died might not do her any good. Plus, he figured that River's reader abilities would be more useful on defense than investigation.

"Albatross, Doc, and 'Nara will stay here too," he decided. "Take care of the wounded and keep 'em safe." They nodded.

"Alright," Mal said, looking outside. "Let's get settled in and get the mule unpacked. If we're going to defend this place, I want to be ready."

"We've already been preparing defenses for some time," MacCauliffie said. "I can show you what we've got."

"That's mighty kind of you, preacher. Lead the way."

* * *

The night came on. Dinner was prepared and served, and the crew ate well, while going over the defense plans, which were limited until they knew more about the enemy's intentions and even if they were going to pursue. Jayne had set up a post in a room overlooking the main approach, setting one of his box-fed machineguns in the window.

The accommodations were fairly Spartan, as expected for an abbey, but the priests had spare cells for the crew. Shepherd Book found his way to one of the small rooms and shut the door. He fished out his datapad and checked the current decryption process, to find the file twenty-seven percent finished. He pulled up another recording, and started listening to it, making notes in his book.

" _. . . Clef attributes the Doctor's increasingly erratic behavior to the mental stresses of our work, but I disagree. I believe that the Inducers got to him, and when you get twenty insane children in your head, it affects you_.

"_Since the last incident, we have kept all of the Inducers in properly separated cells, and all of them are sedated. We are especially worried about their impact on the Empaths. Blank security personnel and drones are being kept on twenty-four hour security detail in the inducer section of the facility in case of further erratic behaviors. Doctor Kondraki has been transferred to the Kinetics sector in hopes that this will help him recover from exposure . . . . "_

Book sighed and turned the recording off an hour into it. He opened his eyes, and started briefly.

Zoë was standing in the doorway, the door cracked open a little bit.

"Preacher," she said, straight and blunt.

"Zoë, he replied, and considered what to say. She beat him to the punch.

"How much has it told you?" she asked. Book glanced down to the datapad, and the precious, tiny needle of memory crystal.

How much did she know? How long had she been listening? He'd tried keeping it secret, but River had found out pretty easily. Maybe she'd let it slip? Or perhaps Zoë just overheard?

"A great deal," he whispered. "Some of it deeply disturbing."

She nodded, considering what to say next.

"I figured out some of why you were involved in that mess back on Persephone," she said. "As far as I know, just me and River know about that data."

"You haven't told the Captain?" Book asked, to which she shook her head.

"If he finds out, I'm not sure how Mal would react," she said. "Is that why you left?"

Book was silent for a moment.

"Have I been that transparent?" he asked. She shook her head.

"Just put my brainpan to work," she replied. "Guessed you were former Alliance, by your card and how you knew so much about them."

"Makes sense," he said. "And yes and no. It wasn't this that made me leave, but I knew of the type of men in command. I knew what they wanted, and I refused to countenance that. And I was getting old. Very, very old."

He settled back on the spare, simple bed, and felt the weight of all of those years for a few moments. He pushed that away just as quickly, and gave Zoë a smile of his own as he changed subjects.

"I've noticed you've been caring for the children," Book mused, to which Zoë gave him a wan smile.

"Figured I'd try the mothering thing," she said, rubbing her swelling stomach. "Get some practice in before the real thing." She paused, frowning. "And some of these kids lost all their parents in the attack. They need someone."

"Good to know someone is looking out for them," Book said, smiling tiredly. A few moments' silence passed before Zoë spoke again.

"I'm not telling Mal," she said. "Way I figure, if you haven't told him, and neither has River, you've got your reasons. You'll tell him and everyone else on your own time."

"Thank you," Book said gratefully, nodding.

"Sleep well, Preacher," she said. "Gonna be a long day tomorrow, I reckon."

* * *

Nighttime descended upon the abbey, and all went quiet, save for a couple of sentries standing guard on the rooftops. The stars were clear and bright in the dead night sky, and the gas giant of Zeus trundled past, the moon Victoria orbiting serenely around it, ignoring the civil war that was brewing on its surface.

Simon found his sister in the courtyard, lying on one of the benches, going through her nightly routine of staring at the stars. He wasn't surprised, as she rarely got a chance to do that planetside, where the starry vista was far wider and more beautiful than what she got to see through the ship's windows.

"Are you going to sleep?" he asked her as he walked toward her. The white light from Zeus made her skin seem an almost pallid gray. "That bench can't be comfortable."

"No," River said, eyes locking on him. She sat up suddenly, and grinned, and then held up her sheathed sword. "Say it."

Simon blinked.

"Say what?"

"The code."

His eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Why?"

"Laertes wants to dance," she said, and he saw mischief in her eyes. "I want to dance too."

"You want me to let you take the sword out now?" he asked, and she nodded.

"Say it," she said. "Promise I'll be good."

Simon mulled over it for a moment, before nodding. He trusted River, and she seemed lucid tonight.

"Independents had dinosaurs," he said, and braced himself.

The hilt lock clicked and swung open. River stood up, holding the sheathed blade carefully, and stepped into the cleared center of the courtyard. He moved back and watched as she slowly drew the blade out of its sheath, and peered into the reflective, polished metal of the _jian_.

The sword rose up into an experimental guard, and she space her legs apart, and then, she . . . danced. She stepped and turned, sweeping the sword around her, moving through multiple guards and defensive motions. She pivoted, the blade flashing with the white light of Zeus, her hair almost pitch black in the cold glare. He heard the sword hum as it whistled through the air, changing directions as she moved through the routine – if he could call it a routine, for there seemed no direct purpose to the dance beyond moving, striking, and defending.

Several years ago, on a trip to a medical conference on Sihnon, one of his colleagues had taken him to a sword exhibition, where he had watched professional performers go through sword-dances of exhilarating grace and beauty.

River wasn't a professional, and she'd never danced with a sword before. He knew that she understood how to use them all too brutally well, but not in a formal, graceful dance of expression. She wasn't as well-trained, she didn't have as much experience, and she certainly had been out of practice over the last four years.

All of that showed. River's dance flowed, but it wasn't as smooth as the best dancers he'd seen. She didn't step as lightly, and her cuts and guards were not as precise or sequential. Some of them were even jerky and halting, or sudden, vicious strikes that moved with a brutality and aggression that made him wince. She wasn't a professional, and this dance wasn't one that would be welcomed at a Sihnon sword exhibition. The judges would snub it and the crowd would be unimpressed.

But all of that was irrelevant.

River was smiling.

She floated across the stone of the courtyard, blade whistling and striking, and Simon imagined enemies approaching her from all sides, and he saw the point behind how she was moving. She wasn't just dancing, she was practicing. And more importantly, she was enjoying it. The last time he'd seen her fall into a dance this intently and enjoyed it this much was when she'd been at the pavilion on Xiangjing, or maybe the dance at the party on Corinth.

He wasn't going to disturb her. Instead, he simply sat down and watched his sister float under the stars and enjoy herself.

* * *

It was getting late, and Jayne had finished preparing the defenses as best he could. He'd snuck into the kitchen and snatched an apple from the refrigerator they had there. It may have been a monastery, but they had some comforts.

He walked down the breezeway, crunching on his apple, and going over in his mind how they'd set up the defenses. He rounded a corner, and glanced out into the courtyard, and stopped dead cold.

He saw white light from Zeus illuminating the courtyard, and in the middle of it, he saw River Tam, with a sword in hand, and she was dancing. The reflected planetlight made her skin look pure white, while her long, unkempt hair seemed to be pure black. She danced with a speed and an economy of movement that the practical killer of his brain appreciated, and yet with a feminine grace that made his animal brain very interested.

Her head turned toward him as she moved, and for a moment, she met Jayne's eyes. And the girl was smiling. He knew she could see him, even in the dark shadows of the breezeway. It was an awful disconcerting notion, but not entirely unpleasant.

" . . .huh."

With that bit of provoking commentary, Jayne leaned against a wall under the shadows of the breezeway, and enjoyed the sight of a young girl dancing under the stars.

* * *

The chapel was lit by a few electric lamps. Most of the villagers were bunking in there, for the feeling of safety that it offered. A couple of priests stood watch over them, armed and ready, and Zoë appreciated their practicality. She walked through the chapel, noting that most of the families and survivors were asleep by now. She paid special attention to the children, making sure they were all sleeping soundly.

She didn't encounter children very often, with what she did, and dealing with them was making her feel different now. A bit warmer inside. Part of her warned her not to get attached, and that she had enough with Wash and their coming child, but part of her liked it.

Only one of the children was still awake. Katie was standing at one of the chapel's windows and looking outside at the courtyard. Zoë stepped up to join her, and saw what she was watching. River was practicing with her sword.

Zoë appreciated River's skills at combat, and she'd saved their lives plenty of times, but watching her move and strike and defend like that was disconcerting. A kid like that shouldn't know how to fight so well, especially one so disturbed. She trusted River, but still . . . .

"She's pretty," Katie said, and looked up to Zoë. "I didn't know she could fight too."

"We all can," she assured the girl, and put a hand on her shoulder. "Come on, you need to sleep." Zoë noticed Katie's eyes were tired, and she had dark marks under them, as if she hadn't had much sleep in a while.

"I don't want to," she quietly protested, but Zoë led her to an unoccupied cot, and she laid down in the bed.

"Sleep well," Zoë said handing her the blanket.

"But it's not safe," Katie mumbled pulling the blanket up to her chin.

"It is now," Zoë said. "Me, Captain Reynolds, River, Jayne, and everyone are gonna keep ya'll safe. Trust me."

The little girl managed a smile, and closed her eyes. Zoë sat down in a pew next to the girl's cot, and pulled her shotgun out and set it across her knees.

Zoë settled in for the long vigil, and old herself that she wouldn't betray that promise to the tired, scared child.

* * *

The landscape was quiet and cool under the light of Zeus, the white planetlight giving fields and orchards a washed-out look. The breeze drifted past, tousling Mal's hair as he sat on the rooftop, a long rifle balanced across his knees.

He heard footsteps behind him, and glanced up, to see Inara approaching across the roof and holding a couple of canteens. He torque bow was strapped across her back, making her both a beautiful sight and a practical one, both of which Mal welcomed.

"Need a drink?" she offered, and took a step that put her a little bit off-balance. Mal shot to his feet to catch her if she fell, purely on instinct, but she caught her balance before he got halfway up. He remained there, crouching for a moment, and they both shared a quiet laugh. He gestured for her to sit beside him

"Care for some company?" Inara asked.

"Be honored," Mal replied, and she settled down beside him, handing him a canteen. He opened it and sniffed. Coffee.

"'Nara, you're an angel," he said with a grin.

They sat together under the night sky, and kept watch together for a long while.

They both knew, deep down, that this was going to be their last chance at peace for a long time, and enjoyed it while they could.

* * *

-

* * *

_**Author's Notes**_: As I've said before, things are a bit slow for the first few chapters in this arc as we build up to the real action. Things will start to swing up in the next chapter or two, and from there, well, you know how these things work out.

And yes, there are strong....hints...in this chapter. Of what, I'm not saying, but I will advise you that it's not as obvious as it might be at first glance.

Until next chapter . . . .


	53. Chapter Four: High Noon

**File Reconstruction 45% Complete**

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* * *

_**Chapter Four: High Noon**_

Day and night cycles on moons orbiting gas giants were odd spectacles, to be certain. Starlight was strained during the nighttime of Victoria, as the gas giant Zeus blotted out most of sky when it was visible. During the daytime cycle, Zeus was still visible alongside the sun, casting double shadows with its reflected light. It made the daytime unusually bright, so when Mal was roused from bed in the uncomfortable little monastic cell he was bunking in, the shaft of daylight from the window nearly blinded him.

"God!"

"He certainly is present," Book remarked from the doorway. Mal blinked and looked up at the old priest through watery eyes. Questions as to who had roused him were solved.

"Is it morning yet?" Mal asked, and Book nodded patiently at the dumb question. "Okay, then. Guess it's time to move." He clambered up out of bed, clad only in his underthings.

"The mule is already prepared," Book added. "We can leave whenever you're ready."

"Down in a second," Mal assured him.

Twenty minutes later, Mal was dressed and had his coat on, not because of the weather but because of the way it covered the pair of sidearms he was wearing – his old antique pistol coupled with an automatic handgun he was keeping as a backup. The rest of the crew were still fighting their way out of bed when he made his way down to the kitchen and stole some fruit and most wondrous thing he'd tasted in a good, long while: fresh-cooked eggs.

"I ain't one for the Lord," Mal said, between bites, "but this might make me a believer."

The others were coming downstairs in various degrees of bleariness; Simon yawning and fresh, with River brighter and cheerier on a level that matched Kaylee. Jayne was his usual grouchy self whenever he woke up without a woman beside him. Zoë came in last, and she looked like she hadn't slept a wink. Several of the children were following her.

"You okay, Zoë?" Mal asked, to which she nodded. He thought he caught a grumble, but if she did, it was too quiet to tell what she was saying.

"Did you get any sleep last night?" he asked.

"Had to stand watch," she muttered, hunting for coffee.

"We had a good watch on the roof," Mal replied.

"Kids," she replied, gesturing to the children while hefting the coffeepot and pouring a mug of liquid awareness. Mal nodded after a moment, sparing a glance to her growing belly. He could guess why she was looking over the children.

"Get some sleep, then," he said. "I'll have Jayne keep an eye on the little ones."

"Sir," she said, looking up from her mug. "They were targeting the children. Why?"

"Don't know," Mal admitted. "I'm thinking we might find some clues at the village."

"You got theories?" she asked, to which Mal shook his head.

"Ain't gonna make a call until I know more," he replied.

After he finished eating, Mal headed toward the front of the abbey, meeting Book on the way. The Shepherd had changed clothes; though he still wore his priest's vest and collar, his clothes were otherwise more rugged and prepared for the road. Mal noted he wore a belt with a holstered pistol at his side, and that hefty machete he'd used before was wrapped up in a cloth bundle that he carried in his other hand.

Mal didn't say anything. The old Shepherd knew his trade, that much was for certain.

Inara was waiting for him by the mule. He knew she'd gotten just as much sleep as he had, because they'd both been pulling first shift on the night watch together. She didn't seem anywhere near as sleep-deprived as Mal did, though that was likely one of her Companion secrets.

"What's the occasion?" he asked as he and Book reached the mule. "Didn't catch you at breakfast."

"Just wanting to wish you luck," she said. "And hoping that you don't do anything exceptionally stupid."

Mal opened his mouth to object, but he didn't get anything to properly respond before the Shepherd cut in.

"That's usually Zoë's duty, to keep the Captain smart," Book remarked. "But I've got that responsibility today."

"See? Plenty of wisdom here," Mal assured Inara after a couple of seconds.

"Just . . ." she wavered for a moment. "We don't know what's out there. Be careful."

That wasn't the usual well-wishing Mal sometimes got. "Be careful" was a triteness, a hopeful line on a par with the usual stuff like "good luck" or "be safe." But this morning, there was more to it. She really did mean for him to take care, and she was right; there was danger out beyond the abbey's walls.

"I'll do my best," Mal assured her. "That's what I do."

She put a hand to his shoulder, fingers brushing his neck, and Mal came to a dead halt. He could smell the dusty wind, but the only thing he heard for a moment was his own heartbeat. Another couple of seconds passed, and he nodded his thanks to her.

Nothing else needed to be said.

A few minutes later, she'd returned to the shelter of the abbey, and Mal and Book were heading toward the village, the morning sun beating down on them. He pulled his goggles down over his face, and then activated his radio.

"Wash? You there?" Mal waited a couple of moments. "Wash? Kaylee? Ya'll read?"

"_Yeah, Cap'n,"_ Kaylee came in a moment afterward. _"Something happening?"_

"Found the church, looks like the survivors from the village took shelter there," he reported. He gave the rest of the rundown of what they'd found. Midway through, Wash arrived and he had to repeat the story for him.

"So, keep an eye on the Cortex and the local network," Mal said. "You get any news, call us up, _dong ma_?"

"Chu wa," Kaylee replied. _"Nothing's happening over here. Wash is . . . oh, I don't know, something with the laundry and his dinosaurs. He's bored as hell."_

"Ya'll are the lucky folks," he said. "I'd be happy to be bored right now."

He closed the link a few moments later. Silence fell over the mule for the next few minutes as they continued out into the mountainous badlands.

"If you didn't want trouble," Book called over the whine of the engine, "you wouldn't have needed to come."

"But I did," Mal replied. "So we're here."

"Thank you, Captain."

"Uh-huh."

* * *

A few minutes after Mal departed the dining room, Father MacCauliffie walked in, talking with Elder Pherson. The elder gave an unpleasant look at _Serenity's_ crew as they sat together, eating and talking, which resulted in Jayne, Zoë, and River giving him equally unpleasant glares right back. The two men split apart a moment later, with MacCauliffie walking toward the crew.

"Good morning," he said, sitting down with them. "I apologize for the treatment thus far. These people are very wary."

"Yes, we're so suspicious," Simon replied, voice dry. "Helping them, healing their wounds and standing guard over them. If I didn't know better I'd say we were criminals."

Jayne muttered something under his breath, while Zoë smiled tiredly. Some of the children were laughing nearby, and her attention shifted toward them for a moment.

"They're doing well now," MacCauliffie added. "We didn't have a doctor, and they needed the treatment. Especially the children."

"I'm glad we were able to help," Simon said.

"Your work has been a blessing so far," the priest said with a genuine smile. "Myself and the rest of the brothers are glad to see you here."

"Is there anything else we can do?" Zoë asked. "Aside from bolstering the defenses?"

"Not really, no. We've got most of the machinery around here working well enough," MacCauliffie added. "So we have some measure of comforts around here. Basic showers, gas heating for cooking. We just need help keeping these folks safe."

"Showers," River echoed. Simon glanced at his sister, who was staring at her food thoughtfully. "Cleanliness is godliness. Dusty biome requires constant cleaning."

"More or less," MacCauliffie said, in that tone that folks who didn't know her usually had when River began babbling. "Water's hot, anyway, so if you want to use 'em, you're welcome to it. And anything else we got to offer."

"Thanks, Father," Zoë said. She glanced back towards the children and rose. "S'cuse me."

Simon watched her as she went over to the children, and started talking with them, a faint but warm smile on her face. He remembered what she'd told him about her worries about motherhood, and the maternal approach she was taking was convincing him she was a natural mother. Zoë stopped to focus on a dark-haired girl with a bandage on her upper arm, who Simon had seen Zoë with earlier. The girl was smiling now, unlike last night.

The doctor turned back to the table, and noted that River was distracted, looking away and out the window, or glancing at Jayne furtively, who was talking intently with the priest.

". . . . do some hunting, but most of the game is second-generation goats and such, after the terraforming," MacCauliffie was saying. "We've never shot at people before."

"No 'specting ya'll to, being holy folks and whatnot," Jayne replied. "I can show you some tricks to fighting, as opposed to just hunting."

"I'd be welcome to it," the priest replied, which made Simon frown. He'd known Book was a very militant Shepherd, but he was surprised at these priests' willingness to shed blood. Then again, they did live out on the Border, where danger was a fact of life. Maybe they were just more practical out here.

The priest and the mercenary rose and stepped outside a few minutes later, leaving Simon alone with River, who was still distracted and didn't answer any of his questions. She finally finished poking at her half-eaten breakfast and rose, wandering away, and he had to debate whether or not to follow her. Simon asked himself the same questions he'd been asking since Kaylee had lectured him on his treatment of his sister: whether he should leave her alone and let her take care of herself at the risk that she might get in trouble, or whether he should keep an eye on her, at the risk of smothering her.

He considered what he'd seen. She was distracted, but she'd been lucid and getting better over the last few months, and they were in a safe, isolated place. He trusted her too much to think that she would hurt anybody.

Simon nodded and rose, letting her wander. This wasn't something that he would solve by babying her, and he would be close by anyway. Instead, he headed back up to his room and fetched his medical kit; he had patients to look after.

* * *

The village was nestled inside a small valley and surrounded by a thin copse of second-generation post-terraforming foliage, mostly young trees and scrub. In the midday light, both Mal and Book could see even from a distance that the village had been ravaged. A dozen houses had been cored and gutted by fire, and even half a kilometer out Mal could see the riddled houses that had been savaged by automatic weaponry. The fog of war had hidden the worst of the destruction from the villagers as they had fled; they had said that only a few homes were destroyed, but from here Mal could tell the village had been hammered hard.

They stopped the mule well outside of town, and the two men scanned the area with their scopes. They didn't see any signs of movement or habitation, but that didn't mean anything. Mal made sure his pistols were loose in their holster, and double-checked the rifle he had at his side, by the driver's chair. Finally, the two men headed into the ruined town.

Mal absently noted the tracks of a couple of armored vehicles – Alliance armored personnel carriers, judging by the spacing and depth of the tires – along with plenty of footprints. If Jayne had been here, he might have told him more.

As they moved through the village, Mal could see corpses inside the ravaged homes, lying where they'd been shot. No effort had been made by the Alliance soldiers that passed through to inter or otherwise remove them. They'd apparently been too spooked to bother. There was a bad smell in the air, and Mal could see several corpses bloating in the heat.

He glanced to Book, and saw the glint of quiet, controlled anger in the old Shepherd's eyes.

"They said Jonathan's body was left on the rooftop of the sheriff's office," Book said quietly. "I want to take a look at it."

"Yeah, me too," Mal said. "You feelin' the need to speak some words over the dead, preacher?"

"Yes," Book whispered, voice tight. "Stop in the middle of town. I'll take care of easing the dead first."

Mal halted the mule in the middle of the village, and Book got out, Bible in hand. He knelt in the dust for a few seconds, moving his hands through the dirt and making the shape of a cruciform. He then bowed his head, and began speaking quietly.

Mal peered around, checking the houses as Book spoke his words. He saw the signs of a methodical slaughter, houses shot out with heavy weapons to force the survivors to flee and run into waiting guns. Other houses were riddled with bullets and laser burns. Mal peered inside these; the signs of gunfire indicated that the attackers had broken into and assaulted these homes. He peered inside, and frowned.

The houses that showed signs of being stormed and assaulted on foot also had bodies lying next to weapons, mostly rifles and shotguns. That didn't make sense; if there had been resistance, the houses normally would have been bombarded with heavy weapons, instead of sending troops inside into close combat.

Unless signs of resistance showed something valuable was in there. Like children, perhaps?

Mal frowned and stepped back outside, to find Book had finished his prayers. The Shepherd rose and walked toward him, and gestured to the sheriff's office. Wordlessly, they went inside. The dead deputy still lay behind the desk, hammered with solid slug and laser shots. They found the ladder the Alliance troops had used and climbed up onto the rooftop.

Forthill's body still lay on the edge of thro of, bloated by the midday heat. Book leaned over his old friend's corpse, closed his eyes, and whispered some words.

"He weren't killed by gunfire," Mal remarked, and Book nodded. "Throat was cut."

"Wasn't execution style, either," Book added absently, eyes closed. He gestured to the dead priest's hands, which were marked by several shallow cuts. Defensive wounds. "He died fighting."

"Body ain't as bloated, either," Mal added. "Not as much decomposition. Might've died a day or two after the others."

"Why would they use a knife or blade on him?" Book asked quietly. "They could have just shot him."

"Might have done it for kicks," Mal mused quietly. He checked the dead priest's pockets, but found nothing of interest on his body.

There was nothing else of note on the rooftop, so they headed back down and began searching the rest of the village. The sun was halfway toward its apex for Victoria's day cycle when they finished moving through the homes. Book's datapad had a built in camera, and he took captures of the homes and bodies. Though they saw plenty of devastation, there were no more clues as to what the Talon mercenaries had been after, beyond the complete lack of any children's bodies.

"Ruthless as this was, I don't think they'd have managed to not hit any kids," Book said quietly. "But there's no bodies from the children."

"You think they took their corpses?" Mal said, and felt a sickness rolling through his stomach. Both men shared a long, heavy look, and they both knew they were right.

"No other clues here," Mal said.

"What about the Blue Sun hydroponics lab?" Book asked. "Pherson said they went there after hitting the village."

"A mile or so thataway," Mal said, nodding south of the village. "Let's see if they got any recordings or something, might tell us what's going on."

* * *

The sun was rising in the sky when Jayne started his way back into the abbey. He'd given the priests some pointers on how to fight with a rifle, and he remembered the last time he'd helped train a bunch of folks in how to fight. The whores at Nandi's brothel had taken a lot longer to teach, because they'd never fired a gun before, but these priests knew how to shoot. All it took was some training in how to take cover and deal with intelligent opponents.

Still, that took most of the morning, and the holy men were heading back inside the abbey along with Jayne. He snatched some food – a couple of apples – for lunch, and started taking a walk around the abbey while the priests ate. He was walking along the inner wall, most of the way through the second apple, when River stepped out onto the breezeway in front of him.

Jayne jerked to a halt. The girl was right in front of him, a distracted look on her face, and she didn't acknowledge him until he grumbled at her in annoyance. Her head snapped up towards him, and the confusion became a cheery smile.

"Aha!" she said, smiling.

"Uh-huh?" he asked, crunching a chunk of the apple.

"Jayne, I need you to help me take a shower."

Jayne froze mid-crunch.

Um.

"Whu," he managed through the half-chewed apple.

"You. Me. Shower."

Those words made him think of a very pleasant dream he'd had once, and then of the last time he'd been on Persephone. She took a step closer, still grinning at him like the crazy teenager she was, and he hopped a step back defensively. He crunched, chewed, and swallowed far faster than the apple deserved.

"Girl, the hell are you on?" he demanded once his mouth was clear. The grin faltered and shrank, but it was still there.

"Sympathetic and comforting presence required during psychological treatment of personal phobias," she said, and then paused. She closed her eyes, lips moving as if counting something, and opened her eyes again. "Facing my fears. Need your help."

Jayne frowned, scowled, and muttered before responding.

"You're scared of taking a shower?" he asked. She nodded. "The hell you scared of taking a shower for?"

The smile disappeared, and she took a sharp breath, shuddering.

"In the . . . _that place_," she said, words halting. "Shower rooms. Cold and impersonal. Clean. Too clean, to wash away the blood." She stopped and turned, stepping out into the sunlight and looking up at the sky.

He knew why.

Jayne puzzled through that while she banished the ugly memories. He knew she hated the infirmary because it reminded her of that Academy. And from what she said . . . was the bathroom the same way for her? Come to think of it, he'd almost never seen her in the ship's bathroom, and she'd never used the shower in there.

"You don't like showers," he said. "Reminds you of where you were."

She'd stopped shuddering while in the sunlight, and she had her face turned skyward, eyes closed. River nodded at his words.

"How the hell you keep clean, then?" he asked, and she smiled.

"Sponge, soap, and pan of hot water," she said. "From Inara."

"Um."

That was a pleasant mental image, he wasn't going to deny.

She turned to look back at him, and he saw a pleading look in her eyes.

"Simon and Inara are busy," she said. "I want to take a shower somewhere that isn't sterile and familiar, but I want a mind that I feel safe around."

Jayne stared at her for a few moments, running those implications though his head. He knew they'd gotten to be more tolerable of each other after surviving hell together, but this was the first time in his memory that she'd told him he made her feel _safe_. It was a disconcerting notion. He didn't deny that he did care about her, the same way he cared about Kaylee or Inara or Zoë, but her responding in kind was unexpected.

Not to mention he'd be in a mountain of trouble if someone walked in on him in the same room as a naked River.

"Don't need to be in the same room," she said quickly. "Just . . . nearby."

"Oh," he said. "I can do that just fine." And it wasn't going to get him in trouble. Hopefully.

Of course, he could just tell her to be tough and deal with it, but dammit, she was giving him the pleading puppy-dog eyes, so Jayne relented.

"Alright, fine," he said, and she smiled again, before practically skipping back inside the building. Jayne grumbled and followed, crunching his apple, and wondering how the hell he could be unhappy and uncomfortable being in proximity to a girl taking off her clothes.

* * *

Jayne was _prickly_.

He stood outside the shower rooms, in a small bathroom area. A trio of shower stalls lined up next to the bathrooms. Jayne lingered in the hallway outside while she undressed. It was cool, but not _**cold**_, and clean, but not _**antiseptic**_.

_-cold metal piping, chrome and steel, **white tiles** with white grout and _white cement_, hot water coming down, eyes watching-_

She jerked even before she began undressing, and stumbled away from the shower stall. She put her hands on the wall-

_-rough gray stone, built by **solid** hands for purposes of faith, belief, reason in conjunction with _**faith**_, for _cleanliness was godliness_ and godliness was not _**a goal**_ but a state of being yet-_

She pushed herself off the stone, finding physical equilibrium on her own two feet. She looked around the bathroom, inhaling, and stepped toward the lockers where the others had stashed some of their clothes. Her fingers brushed one of Simon's shirts, and then Zoë's vest, the strength inside it pushing back, and then one of Jayne's spare trousers.

No. _Don't _need to think of Jayne's trousers now.

The emotions and associations of the textures and scents flooded in, _caressing_ her with warmth, and River used that to chase away the memories. The _prickly_ hovering outside came back, and Jayne's clear, **bold thoughts**

_-why's the gorram girl taking so damn long to take a gorram shower?_

made her feel better. They _rolled in_ as she focused on them, _battering aside_ the **bad, oily and sticky** _fingers_ of _**tar and blood**_.

She moved back across the room, and pushed open the stall. She forced herself to step into the small, stony space, and put her fingers to _cool steel_. She started to turn the mechanism, and then paused.

She was still dressed.

Right. She _flickered_ back outside and scanned the room, making sure no one was watching. Jayne was still outside, and _still prickly_, with the spikes tinged a bit by _**horn**_. Secured, she removed her dress and underthings, piling them neatly beside the lockers. Then, she placed Laertes next to the shower stall, where it would be easy to reach. She glanced about again, making sure no one was watching

-_someone was always watching when she was naked_-

and then stepped back inside. The mechanism turned, _cool metal_ digging into her fingers, and she saw _hotness_ and _liquid_ in the _**steel and ceramic**_, and then

_**hot water!**_

She gasped in shock and a bit of pain. The water was hot, hotter than she remembered, hotter than they'd _let it run up_ before, and it beat on her skin in a steady pulse of pressure and impact.

She let it hammer her, hot and _solid_ and_ intense_, and it felt . . . it felt . . . .

Clean. Clean, _**but not antiseptic**_.

She stepped in closer, letting the water beat and massage and cleanse her, run through her hair, over her skin, washing away the dust and worries and memories. It was

normal

River felt normal. She was just a girl, taking a shower, cleaning herself, with a friendly mind close that made her feel _safe and secure and cared for_.

There was a _**hotness**_ in her eyes, and it had nothing to do with the heat or the water or the steam, and it had nothing to do with pain or loss or memory.

And she laughed. She laughed, she smiled, and _salty water_ mixed with fresh hot water on her face.

River stood under the showerhead, and let it cleanse the _**darkness,**_ if only for a little while.

* * *

The Blue Sun facility was a modest, mostly pre-fabricated structure built into a mountain wall a kilometer past the village. A half-dozen blocky, gray-brown pre-fab structures sat outside a circular door that led into the rock face. The structures looked like they could have been dropped off by an aircraft and dragged to where they sat, and appeared to be habitats. One looked like it had been a communications facility, but the external antennae were smashed and bent.

Mal brought the mule to a halt outside the ring of habitats, and he and Book stepped out, weapons in hand. There was nothing moving, not even the quiet hum of working generators. They advanced cautiously, sweeping the quiet, empty area. The sun and Zeus were high, but the angle was such that the cliff cast shade over the habitats. Despite the heavy hotness of midday, the area under the cliff itself was cooler, and Mal could guess why they chose this spot.

They checked the habitats one by one, finding a series of small bunks in most of them. The one Mal had marked as a communications building fit the bill, with an array of radios and other comms gear scattered across the tables and desks inside, but all of it had been smashed and gutted.

"Someone took an axe to all this gear," Book murmured, emerging from one of the rooms.

"How can you tell?" Mal asked.

Book hefted a large axe he'd found in the room in question. It was a wooden-handled, iron tool that was notched with age and use.

"Ah. Not standard gear around here," Mal mused. Book nodded.

"Not the kind of gear you'd find in the employ of mercenaries, either," the Shepherd said.

"Don't mean nothing," Mal added, frowning. "Might have just grabbed one from the village on the way over."

"Find anything?" Book asked, to which Mal shook his head.

"No bodies, no signs of conflict, aside from this room," he said. "Might be more clues inside the main building."

They stepped back out into the shade, which was retreating as the sun continued to rise. The circular door's control panel showed signs that it had been tampered with; someone had apparently tried to seal the door and then destroy the panel with an axe. The rents in the panel matched the axe that Book had found. Someone had come afterward, opened up the controls, and then run a bypass on the circuitry underneath.

"Mercs came afterward," Mal said, after examining the panel. He worked the wires underneath, and with a hiss, the door opened. "Whoever wrecked the communications tried to seal the door and keep anyone out by destroying the controls. Mercs came in and bypassed it."

"Looks like," Book agreed. They peered inside the doorway, to see a short corridor that connected to an entry room. Low-level emergency lighting was still on, but the escaping air held the stench of recent decay.

The entry room was a security station, complete with a desk, a low-level security door, and some camera monitors that were all out. A couple of gun racks were behind the desk, stripped of their contents, and there were bloodstains on the metal floor.

A corpse lay behind the desk.

He was dressed in a blue security uniform with the Blue Suns logo on the shoulder. He'd been gutted by some kind of bladed weapon, and his throat was ripped out. Dried blood covered his uniform. The body was old and locked in rigor-mortis, judging by the decay.

"That is definitely not the work of the mercs," Mal whispered.

"I'd put this body at . . . at least three weeks, maybe older," murmured Book. "Smell matches it."

"Gives us some kind of timeframe for what happened," the captain added.

They checked the security room, noting that anything of value had likely been stripped. Most of the equipment was destroyed by other heavy hand weapons, likely sledgehammers or axes.

The doorway beyond had also been bypassed, and led into a long, white corridor with a half-dozen doors, three on either side. The lighting was still working, which showed them the bloodstains and corpses that were scattered along the length of the passage. A couple were security, while the rest wore the kind of semi-rugged gear one would expect from well-supplied settlers. The employees working at this facility, apparently.

They were all killed with bladed or blunt weapons. Broken limbs and heavy, deep rents in their torsos were evident. There were a few bullet holes in the walls, where the guards had fired on whatever had attacked them. Mal saw blood splatters here and there that looked like they came from exit wounds, and closer examination showed some splatter on the floor that made him imagine bodies being dragged outside.

The side doors led to the hydroponics areas themselves, which were used as labs to test new plant-life in simulated atmosphere and dirt environments from the planet itself. They were automated rooms that looked like long, enclosed greenhouses. Neat rows of plants sat under bright lights, with small misters regularly hissing and spraying water onto them. Even having been left alone for weeks, the plants were still growing and bore large fruit and vegetables, some of which had broken off and fallen to the floor. The plants, genetically engineered for large yields, were overgrown due to lack of tending.

More bodies were scattered around the individual rooms, all dressed like employees. It looked like they had fled into the rooms and hid themselves, and had been hunted down one by one. They didn't find any new indicators as to what had happened.

As Book moved through one of the growing rooms, he stopped, noting one of the bodies. Something about the man seemed familiar, but he couldn't place it, probably because a long, heavy gash ran through the middle of his face. Coupled with the near month-long decay and it was hard to place the face. With a frown, the Shepherd took out his datapad and turned on the camera attachment, taking a picture of the body.

"Find anything?" Mal called.

"Not sure," Book replied, standing back up and putting the datapad away.

They finished checking the rest of the facility, including a couple of offices at the rear of the main corridor. The rooms were empty of bodies, though trashed just as viciously as the rest of the facilities. Someone had ransacked the offices and taken an axe or sledgehammer to all the furniture, leaving them a shattered mess.

"Nothing useful here," Mal called to Book, who was in the office on the opposite side of the hall, and started toward the door out of the office. "More questions than ans-"

_Zip-click_.

A gun barrel approximately the size of the universe hovered a few inches in front of his face as he stepped out the door.

_Zip-cli-zip-zip-click-cli-zip-click_.

Followed by a several more guns, wielded by a quartet of men in gray and black armor, with a blood-red emblem of a wing and talon on their breastplates.

* * *

The sun was near its apex, and Simon was making his rounds with Inara beside him. The villagers had scattered around the abbey after being confined inside for so long, and the Doctor was checking bandages and doing follow-ups for all the injuries in the church.

Inara thought it was odd to see the Doctor at work with a medical bag in one hand and a submachinegun slung underneath one shoulder. Simon was still getting used to being comfortable carrying a weapon around with him, and he knew it would take him a while to acclimatize to it.

The children were in the courtyard outside the chapel, with some of them trying to play. Some of the others were simply hugging close to their parents, and Inara understood why, but what surprised her was the number of children who were sitting close to Zoë. The veteran was sitting by the courtyard, keeping watch over the kids with her shotgun in hand. One of the children, a dark-haired little girl, was even dozing at Zoë's side.

"Did you get any sleep last night?" Inara asked her as she walked over, noting that the veteran was still as bleary-eyed as she'd been that morning. Zoë nodded.

"Got enough," she replied. "Volunteered to take first watch anyway, give the preachers and the men some time to rest."

"Maybe you should take a break now," she offered. "I can watch over the children, or get River and Jayne to guard them."

"Those two would be too busy being at each other's throats to watch anyone," Zoë replied with a thin smile. "I'm fine," she added, stiff refusal in her tone.

Inara hid her frown. She knew Zoë was tough and stalwart, but the veteran soldier was always practical and had never pushed herself into a foolish situation – with one exception. She remembered how Zoë had responded to Wash's injuries on Mr. Universe's moon, and how she'd calmly, silently waded into melee with an overwhelming number of foes.

The same icy, angry determination was present in her posture and expression now. She was being as obstinate as Mal.

The Companion could guess why. Zoë had never been the most maternal person, but when she did find someone she could care about – which included _Serenity's_ crew – she could be hellishly vicious in protecting them, in her own calm manner. Maybe it was just the child growing inside of her, but she'd apparently taken to watching over these children the same way she watched over her crew.

Inara decided it would be better not to argue. Mal would be back soon, and he could probably order her to take a rest.

The little girl at Zoë's side stirred, looking up at Inara. She smiled at the girl, who smiled back, and then closed her eyes again. Inara looked away, up toward the sun in the sky, and sighed, thinking about the two who were out in the wilderness without any support.

"You worried about Mal again?" Zoë asked. Inara managed a quiet but strained laugh.

"Mal is always in trouble," she said. "I think he prefers it that way."

"He can take care of himself," Zoë said, confident. "Shepherd's got his back."

* * *

There were a lot of intelligent things one could say when confronted by swarthy, dangerous types in armor and with large, painful-looking weaponry pointed one's way.

". . . hi."

That wasn't one of them.

"Lose the gunbelt," snapped the leader, a heavyset man with a long beard that would horrify small children. He was obviously the leader of this group because he had the largest weapon, an assault rifle approximately the size of a battleship. Two other goons stood behind him, both equally ugly in their own unique ways. The last of the hideous quartet was stepping into the office opposite Mal, where Book was.

So, the plan was simple: string them along, and hope they got annoyed enough to make a mistake.

"Hm?" Mal asked. "Oh, this gunbelt? That's purely decorative."

"Don't be smart with me, boy," the leader said. "Hands up, and lose the gunbelt."

"Ah, there is a slight logistical problem with doing both of those-"

_Zip-click._

"Hands up," Mal agreed, putting his hands in the air. He glanced down at his belt, and started shimmying his hips.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Trying to get the gunbelt off without using my hands," he replied. "Kind of hard to do."

"Stop that," the man snarled. Mal did so.

"So, you guys are the Talons, huh?" Mal asked quickly, before the leader could continue.

"Quiet," he snapped. "We're the ones asking the questions here."

"And you're doing a very fine job of it," Mal agreed.

"You will be silent," the leader growled, shoving _Das Gun_ in Mal's face. Mal nodded quickly, and went quiet.

"Now, who are you?" the leader snarled. "Where did you and your men come from?"

Mal stared back, and didn't speak.

"I asked you a question."

Mal raised his eyebrows, and then rolled his eyes.

"Answer me!"

Mal opened his mouth, and then mouthed the words _You will be silent_.

In response, the mercenary punched Mal in the face, knocking him off his feet.

"Enough games!" he snarled.

"Do you get all your threats from bad action movies?" Mal muttered under his breath, as the mountain-sized assault weapon was shoved into his face, the barrel large enough to comfortably seat his nose.

"Answer my question," the leader growled. "Where is the rest of your group?"

"Well, one is right behind you."

It was the leader's turn to roll his eyes.

"I'm not that stupid," he said.

_Zip-click._

"In this case, it's quite justified," Shepherd Book said, pointing a pistol at the back of the mercenary's head.

The Talon commander looked like someone had thrown a hungry shark at his crotch. His eyes widened, and his head tilted a fraction toward the Shepherd, who stood behind him. In the corridor, both the man's thugs lay on the floor, uncomfortably unconscious.

"Drop the gun," Book ordered, his words like frozen nitrogen. The mercenary lowered his weapon, and tossed it aside, the clatter sounding like an avalanche. "Good. Now we-"

Mal kicked the bearded idiot in the danglies. The man keeled over, gasping in pain, and the captain scrambled to his feet. He bent down and grabbed the heavy weapon, feeling like he'd get a hernia just hefting it.

"_Or_," Book said, "We could fight like four-year-olds."

"I can bite his shin, too," Mal offered, holding the massive weapon on the mercenary. He wasn't sure how to use it, but he guessed that "pull the trigger" equaled "probably dead mercenary."

"Anyway, now it's our turn to ask the questions," Mal said, and then paused. He glanced to Book. "So . . . what do we ask him?"

"I will tell you nothing!" snarled the mercenary. Mal sighed.

"Oh, well then," he said, raising the planet-sized weapon with a barely-hidden grunt of effort.

"No, wait!" the mercenary squealed. "I . . . I don't know anything!"

"Well, let's test that hypothesis," Mal replied, pointing the weapon at the bearded moron's kneecap. "I want to see how loud this gun is, anyway."

The merc let out a high-pitched sound similar to a deflating tire, and scrambled back a little.

"How many men in your team?" Book asked.

"Ten!" the merc said. "The rest are outside! We told 'em to cover the entrance while we got you!"

"Weapons?" Mal asked.

"Shotguns and rifles," the merc replied quickly.

"What are you after these villagers for?" Book asked.

"I don't know."

"Oh," Mal said, leveling the cannon at the merc's leg. "I bet you'll know tons after we-"

"The kids!" he gasped. "I just know we're supposed to grab the kids! All of them!"

"Adults?" Book said, tone quiet and sharp and incredibly deadly.

"Kill them all," the mercenary admitted. "Recover all of the children, including any bodies we find."

Mal and Book shared a look between them. _Including_ the bodies of any dead children?

"Why children?" Mal demanded.

"I don't know," the merc said. "I just follow orders, man."

Mal scowled at the man. "I'm following orders" was never a proper excuse for him; he'd shown that to the Alliance before.

"Where are the villagers now?" Book asked, on a hunch.

"Some church somewhere," the merc replied. "We were sent here to grab you guys and see if you knew what was happening."

"Has anyone else been to the church?" Book asked, to which the merc shrugged.

"No one's said anything about it," he replied. "We just found out today."

Book and Mal looked to one another again. If they knew where the abbey was, it was only a matter of time before they attacked. At least they apparently didn't know about _Serenity's_ crew.

"If we wait much longer," Book said, "They'll come in after us. We need to get back."

"Agreed," Mal said, and drew his pistol. Before anyone could say anything, Mal shot the merc in the kneecap. He jerked, crying out in pain, while Mal spun and started walking out into the corridor. "I'll be keeping this gun!"

"_Hun dan_!" the mercenary said between gasps of pain.

"Very fine work, Preacher," Mal said, stepping over the unconscious bodies. He hadn't even seen Book at work until the last second, let alone heard him. The Shepherd could be downright _scary_ when he wanted to be.

"You're noisiness was a blessing," Book replied, holstering his pistol and taking up an assault rifle from one of the downed Talon soldiers. Mal's rifle was still in the mule, so they'd have to make do with enemy weapons.

"Let's get the hell out of here," Mal rumbled, face hardening as he remembered the merc's words.

Children.

_Hun dan._

* * *

There wasn't any shampoo, but that was fine. _Hot water running through River's hair_ cleaned it more effectively than _**months and months**_ of sponge baths. She'd lost track of the amount of time she spent under the _warm massage_ of hot water, but she could **taste **impatience coming from Jayne's _prickliness_.

_Prickliness_ translated into an amalgam of _nervousness_, anxiety, _**curiosity**_, and a little bit **of embarrassment**. After all, she'd asked him to stand watch over her while she did something he probably fantasized about with countless women before. It had to make him somewhat flustered.

As she stood under the shower, she let her mind be carried along the breeze. She _saw_ Zoë and Inara, and myriad of children. _Sadness, anger, __confusion_, and other emotions swirled around them, and she recoiled. The children were hurting too much. _**Too familiar**_. Simon did his **work,** clinical and detached yet quietly worried in that _compartmentalized portion_ of his brain. The priests and villagers were weary, afraid, _suspicious_ of the newcomers in spite of everything they'd done.

She frowned. They were idiots.

Her mind rolled outward, and her body made a deeply pleased sound at the hot, aquatic massage she was getting.

Two minds, up above, on the rooftop. _Guards, __sentries,__ wardens__, watchmen__, synonyms for protectiveness_. One holy man, one _**not-so-holy**_ man from the village, walking or standing and watchi-

They exploded.

_**Death**, _splattered blood_, falling bodies rolling across tiles-_

A dozen minds, _two dozen_, _**more**_, tinged with **violent intentions**, _blood_ and _**greed**_ and _**aggression**_, all sides, _coming together_, _**closing in**_ predators **sniffing and hunting and**-

_-snipers must eliminate sentries first prior to assault-_

She screamed, and threw the door open. She tripped on her way out of the stall, but managed to keep from hitting the floor hard.

_**Violence and blood and **_**evil****_ and_**

Somewhere in there, she'd started curling into a ball, reflexively, but she forced herself to try to stand up and acclimate her mind. _These minds were not Reavers_. She had faced _worse_. The _**dark intentions**_ were a shock, but

"I am functional," she breathed, pushing herself off the floor. "I am functional. I am-"

Jayne charged into the room, pistol in hand. She shook her head. Time was _dilating_ in her mind; words were fumbling out of her lips. He came to a halt when he saw River crouched on the floor, naked and shivering despite the steam.

"Girl, what the he-"

"They're here!" River said. Jayne froze.

Then, halfway across the abbey, they heard the rush of an incoming missile, and then the gates exploded.

* * *

**_-_**

* * *

**_Author's Note: _**Well, the peace couldn't have lasted forever, now could it? :P

As I said before, what seems obvious in this arc _isn't_. And as I requested before, if you think you've figured it out, please don't spoil it for others. PM me and I'll tell you whether you're right or wrong.

Until next chapter....


	54. Chapter Five: Bastion

**File Reconstruction 59% Complete**

**Project Cerbe15s: CereEbg - Enh#0c^men( Recursion S%$t&m**

**Psych!*&) Pr$3ile**

**Test Su65ec!- $nduc#r 000-11^ - WaNe, 49#hry!**

* * *

_**Chapter Five: Bastion**_

Mal peeked out the door, far enough back inside the facility that no one could see him. He saw a half-dozen men in black armor, moving around or standing watch outside the habitats. One was crouched beside the mule, looking into an open panel. All were armed.

"Okay," he said, leaning back. "I count six guys. Lot of ugly. All of 'em got longarms of one sort or another. No big machineguns."

"Do we have a plan?" Book asked.

Mal frowned and shrugged. The preacher nodded.

"Good enough, I suppose."

"Shoot 'em until they don't get back up," Mal said, hefting the continental cannon. "Let's bring some justice."

"Amen, Captain," Book said, and hefted his rifle.

They stepped out and opened fire.

* * *

She had recognized the sound of an incoming missile before the gate was shattered, and thus Zoë was up and moving as soon as the gate was blown apart. Mental maps of the layout of the abbey sprang to mind. There was a short entryway from the outer gate to the inner gate that would lead to the interior of the abbey. They had maybe twenty seconds at most before the attackers breached the courtyard and began working their way through the church grounds.

"Children, into the chapel!" Zoë barked, shouldering her weapon. Simon and Inara began to shoo the children toward the doors, and a pair of priests and some adults started grabbing kids and either carrying or pushing them toward the chapel itself. She heard cries and shouts from across the abbey, and knew that many of the adults and some of the children were scattered around the buildings.

She couldn't help them now. These children and the adults they could save were her priority. She kept her weapon covering the inner door leading to the courtyard as she backed away, and heard the children retreating into the chapel. Zoë backed into the open doorway.

The inner gate blew inward, and she knew the sound of a breaching charge. As splinters of wood flew about, she saw figures beyond, in dark armor with blood-red emblems. Her weapon shifted, and she sighted the first man to emerge through the smoke and flying splinters.

Her shotgun roared, and the man's head jerked back, a burst of red blossoming as the charged-shot tore into his face. He toppled backward, and then Zoë ducked through the door, slamming it shut.

"Down!" she yelled, and pulled down the priest who was closing the door.

A second later, gunfire ripped through the wood, flying over everyone's head.

Zoë scrambled for the nearest window, keeping low, and peeked out for a heartbeat.

Men in black armor over gray fatigues were pouring through the main door, at least ten of them, armed with assault rifles and shotguns. A couple of the mercenaries were firing their weapons at the doorway, clearly suppression fire.

Zoë sighted one, stilled her breath, and shot him in the throat. The charged shot punched through his neck and threw him off his feet.

She ducked back as the remaining shooter turned to fire on her window, and looked across the chapel. A half-dozen adults, a few priests, and a gaggle of maybe twenty children – most of the village's survivors – were hunkered down. Simon was checking for any injuries, while Inara was loading a bolt into her torque bow. She looked up to Zoë, and her expression told the veteran that she was going to take Zoë's lead.

"Larkin, Eads," she yelled at the two armed priests on the other side of the chapel. "Take the window on the east side." She looked to Inara. "Inara, that window on the west side, keep them from getting shots in at us." She crawled back to the window, drew a knife from her belt, and held it up. She checked the reflection in the knife, and saw two of the mercenaries crouched behind columns beneath one of the breezeways. They were covering the window, ready to fire if she exposed herself.

Zoë nodded, crawled to a different window, and rose. She leaned out just enough to get a shot and fired. The round missed her target, skipping off the stone beside his face, but he jerked back, flakes of stone stabbing into his flesh, and he dropped behind cover. Good enough.

* * *

Her dress was across the room, and while fighting naked was possible, it was also ill-advised. River grabbed the first clothes she could while Jayne stepped outside, grabbing Vera from where he left it leaning against the wall. He turned back to see her pulling on one Simon's white shirts while pulling up Mal's spare trousers. She was belting them with the sash, and held up her sword.

"Password, quickly," she said, and he grunted.

"Cortical electrodes," he said, and heard a peal of gunfire. "Hurry up girl, we gotta move!"

"I count twenty," she said, and then pushed past him, drawing her sword. "Coming through the main gate. Everyone's falling back inside the abbey."

"How we gonna run this?" he asked, and she frowned, before running down the hallway. He chased after her.

"Zoë is pulling everyone into the chapel," she said. "Simon and Inara with her." She paused. "Nineteen now."

"They'll surround it," Jayne said, and heard another burst of gunfire. "Move into the outer buildings first and clear 'em out."

"We stop them," River said, and Jayne nodded.

"They know we're here?" he asked, and she shook her head, which gave him a dark grin. "They ain't gonna see us coming."

Jayne Cobb hefted Vera and took the lead, with River trailing him in her mismatched man-clothes and sword in hand.

* * *

Mal didn't know much about the ins-and-outs of heavy weapons, but he'd fired plenty of them before. He knew that walking out into the open with a huge-as-hell machinegun and blazing away wasn't the brightest idea, but he also knew one other, equally important fact.

It was scary as hell.

He'd checked the cannon's ammunition before he'd stepped out, and saw each bullet was the size of his index and middle fingers put together. He understood that he was about to face some hellish recoil, and he braced himself as he stood up, shouldered the gigantic weapon, and cut loose with a ten-round burst.

There were six Talon mercenaries standing around the habitats outside, all of them crouched and wary, but not ready for an attack; they'd apparently expected four men could handle two lightly-armed drifters.

Mal's gunfire tore through one of them, making two cantaloupe-sized holes in the man's chest, before they ducked for cover, suddenly realizing they were under fire. The recoil from the cannon was incredible, hammering back Mal's arm. He could keep the sights on his target for the first couple of shots, but after that the weapon tracked upward, and the rest of his fire went wide. The captain's shoulder shrieked in pain as he pivoted and fired another burst on another of the mercenaries, but the man was diving behind the habitat, and the rounds struck harmlessly. Or rather, they struck quite harmfully to the habitat trailer, punching clean through the metal, but missed the mercenary.

The noise was insane, and Mal's ears began ringing as he fired the weapon. The last time he'd handled a gun that noisy was when he'd manned the anti-air cannons at Serenity Valley. Book stepped out of the doorway into the open air, but unlike Mal's wild, noisy avalanche of gunfire, he held his shots, breaking to the right. He kept his rifle high as Mal followed him, rattling off bursts of heavy fire from the battleship-sized machinegun. The two men moved toward the nearest habitat trailer while Mal kept the bad guys' heads down.

A Talon mercenary stepped around into view around the trailer they were running toward, on the right side. Book popped him with a single shot to the right kneecap, knocking man's leg out from under him. He fell sideways toward the trailer, and smacked his head against the wall.

Mal kept up the fire, spraying the other trailers and the men behind them. They kept behind cover, unwilling to expose themselves to more accurate fire from the gigantic cann-

It clicked and then went silent. The thunderblasts faded away, leaving only a very ominous silence.

Mal looked down at the gun like it had punched him in the gut.

"Oh, you treacherous sumbitch."

Talon mercenaries rose from cover, coming around the trailers with weapons raised. Mal didn't waste time trying to figure out whether the cannon had jammed or simply run out of ammunition. He threw the weapon aside and drew his pistol. He fired a couple of shots as he followed Book, more to remind the enemy that he could still kill them than to actually drop any of the mercenaries.

Book took the lead into the trailer, kicking in the door, and Mal was right behind him as the Talons opened up. Rounds screamed and howled off the metal and _whuffed_ through the dirt as he ducked inside the relative safety of the trailer.

"That went about as well as we could expect," Mal said, as rounds hammered against the outside of the trailer.

"We stay in here, they'll pin us down," Book replied. Mal glanced around the interior of the trailer. It was one of the ones used as bunks, with a half-dozen small cubbyhole rooms for each staff member. There were two doors that led inside the trailer, and a ladder ran up one wall to a hatch on the roof.

"There's a blessing," Mal murmured. Book nodded as he saw what Mal meant. The trailers were about twice the height of a man, which meant it would be hard to look up on the rooftop – especially as the bad guys would be watching the doorways.

"I'll go up first," Mal started to say, when Book simply clambered up the ladder in his stead. Annoyed, Mal turned to cover the doors. Overhead, the Shepherd reached the top of the ladder and found a hatch, which he carefully opened. He peeked out the top.

"Hostiles on either side," he whispered. "Going for both entrance doors. One's helping the wounded man. No one's watching the roof."

Mal clambered up the ladder after him. He didn't need to say anything; both captain and preacher crawled out onto the rooftop as silently as they could. The metal was getting hot in the noon sunlight, but didn't burn through their gloves, making it uncomfortable instead of unbearable.

They had seconds until the Talons either breached and assaulted the trailer or simply tossed grenades inside and then waltzed in to clean up. Either way would end with them realizing their opponents had escaped.

No one was watching the far side of the trailer, and Mal and Book dropped down in the dirt, right as they heard the detonations of a pair of grenades. So much for the safety of being indoors.

The mule was parked about fifteen meters away, next to the Talons' transport, a much larger hovering transport with a covered rear. Their mule still looked serviceable; either the Talons hadn't had time to disable it or they hadn't considered it a priority.

Mal and Book dashed straight for the mule, with Mal trailing and watching their backs. They got within a few meters when the mercs emerged, and one of them spotted the escaping pair. Mal snapped his pistol up and fired a double-tap, hitting the first mercenary in the hip and shoulder. The rounds deflected off the man's armor, but spun him around enough to stagger him, and both Mal and Book made it to the mule without getting shot in the back.

Mal climbed up into the driver's seat while Book jumped into the rear passenger couch. Gunfire slashed toward them, bouncing off the metal frame. Book snapped up his rifle and fired, and this time the merc who Mal had staggered fell, clutching his leg.

The mule powered up to life, and Mal swung it around so the armored backside would be presented at their opponents, and they shot away over the scrub-covered badlands.

Mal exhaled a few seconds after they got away, and began to laugh. He looked back over at Book, and was about to speak, but stopped.

"What is it, Captain?" the Shepherd asked.

Mal quickly turned back, keeping his mouth shut. He wasn't going to say how close that was, and how lucky they were that they had gotten away. That was just begging for trouble.

Then a burst of rounds skipped off the side of the mule, making both men duck for cover.

The trio of Talons who were still in fighting shape were behind them, in their own transport, two of them firing away at their rear.

"_Gorram_ it!" Mal yelled, gunning the engine. "I tried not to say anything! I learned a long time ago not to say anything!"

* * *

It was a short hallway about ten meters long, and wide enough that Jayne and a clone of himself could have passed through shoulder to shoulder. There was a wooden door at both ends, and a couple more on the inner wall that led to storage rooms.

The door at one end splintered inward as a booted foot slammed into it, working to kick it open. The Talon mercenary behind the door gave it another kick for good measure, knocking it all the way open, while behind him, three other men waited with rifles and shotguns. Standard breaching procedure was for the kicker to step back and let the breaching team enter, but procedure went out the window when three heavy armor-piercing rounds punched through the door and then the kicker's torso. He fell backward in a limp tangle of limbs.

Jayne, who was crouching in the storage room door farthest from the broken door, fired another quick burst through the door, hoping to catch another mercenary, but they had ducked behind the intervening wall. A second later, one of the mercenaries pointed his gun around the corner and opened up, spraying the hallway with fire. Bullets scored through gray masonry, launching clouds of dust and whipping splinters of stone. Jayne ducked behind cover himself.

The other two mercenaries stormed forward into the hallway the moment their compatriot finished firing. They moved as a professional team, one firing his shotgun while the other put down bursts of controlled fire on the door Jayne was standing behind. They stepped into the hallway, putting their backs to the wall opposite the side Jayne was hiding behind. The third stepped into the hallway after them, pulling a grenade from his belt.

Their eyes were locked on Jayne's position, so if he emerged they'd gun him down instantly. Their weapons were trained on Jayne's door, so killing him would take a single twitch of the trigger. They had a superior position, and alone, Jayne was dead.

The hallway was wide enough for Jayne to walk shoulder-to-shoulder with himself, which meant it was narrow enough.

River Tam, legs braced against the walls above the door and back flush with the ceiling, dropped down in the middle of the mercenaries.

There was no time for mercy. Laertes plunged into the back of the rearmost mercenary's neck, stabbing out through his throat. He jerked, spasming as the electrosword did its work, sending a pulse of lightning through his body. The flash and the burst from the sword caused the other two mercs to spin toward her, and by that time River was upon the next, tearing her sword free and slashing low.

The _jian_ sliced through the next mercenary's unarmored leg, and the flash of lightning from the blade sent him jerking and twitching. He fired his weapon up into the air, punching holes in the wall and ceiling, and Laertes slashed up into a seam in the plate armor over his chest. Electricity shot through the mercenary's lungs and heart.

The last was raising his rifle, but he wasn't fast enough. River was tearing her blade free and was about to put it through the fourth man when Jayne popped out of cover, and popped the merc's head with two rounds from Vera. River jerked back from the spray of blood.

Jayne stepped out into the hallway, sweeping to make sure no one was sneaking up on them. River started wiping her face. Blood had splattered on her stolen clothes, and there was an acrid smell of burnt flesh hanging in the air. The electrified blade she was holding had some black patches where it had scorched the blood on its length.

"You okay girl?' Jayne asked, stopping beside her, keeping Vera leveled at the door. She blinked and nodded, left hand still working to wipe away the red droplets.

"Damned spot," she muttered under her breath.

"How many left?" Jayne asked.

"Thirteen," she replied immediately. "Bad number. Unlucky number. Four more outside, in vehicles."

"Probably a search team. They figure out there's more here than they 'spected, they'll come at us with everything they've got," Jayne muttered, and she nodded. He saw something in her face, a flicker of pain and disgust, but it faded and was replaced by that same cold glare that she'd gotten when she'd been about to slice up those Alliance soldiers.

"We have to kill them all," she said, voice cold, like a machine. _Gorram_ it, that was creepy.

Creepy, but kind of cute.

"Let's get to it," he agreed.

* * *

It was getting hard to see outside. The mercenaries were putting regular shots through the windows every few seconds, forcing everyone to keep their heads down, and Zoë couldn't get a glimpse outside. Nor could anyone else, as the others were just hugging the walls behind cover, which was a bad sign. Zoë had been schooled in the importance of fire superiority during the war, and understood that once your opponent had you pinned down and unable to return fire, it was only a matter of time before he closed and finished the battle.

The others were scared. Inara and Simon were not soldiers, and though they'd seen plenty of combat with the rest of the crew, they weren't disciplined enough to return fire under these conditions. Hell, Zoë knew that if she showed her head, she'd be killed in seconds.

She felt something against her leg, and looked down, to see Katie curled up beside her, terror obvious in the girl's face. Zoë suddenly felt a flash of anger and determination when she looked down at the little girl, and rose just enough to give her a tiny glimpse outside.

The mercenaries were spread out around the chapel, taking cover behind the breezeway pillars. She counted at least eight, four of whom were shooting into the windows. The rest were gathering to the east of the chapel, and were reloading their weapons.

"Everyone, get ready," she ordered. "They're going to try to breach! Break in here on the east side!" She looked back. The two armed priests were praying quietly while holding their weapons. Inara had that calm expression and poise she bore in times of peril, with only her eyes giving away her fear as she crouched, bow loaded. Simon was all calm and business, but was busy making sure there were no injuries. Zoë knew she could count on him to fight like an animal if it came to it, but his skill and discipline were lacking.

She peeked out again, and a round nearly took her nose off. She ducked back, but she'd seen enough of the enemy to know what was about to happen.

"Here they come!" she yelled, crouch-walking to the east side of the chapel. She raised her weapon, and saw the priests readying their guns. Simon slid between the civilians and the side the mercenaries were going to come in through, while Inara crouched behind a pew, weapon leveled.

Zoë waited until she could _feel_ the men outside, and then shoved her shotgun through the window and pulled the trigger.

Someone screamed, and gunfire erupted through the window, followed by yelling.

Then someone threw a flashbang into the chapel.

Zoë ducked and spun away, covering her head, and dropped behind a pew to hide her eyes from the flash. She braced herself, squeezed her eyes shut.

_Light. Noise. Pain._

She shoved herself to her feet as her head exploded with agony, rolling through her ears. Bile rose up in her throat, and she wanted to puke, so intensely loud was the detonation. But she could see.

Dark shapes came through the window, only two meters away. One hit the floor, and raised his weapon. The mercenary fired, and there was a scream of pain, and flashes of light. The second hit the floor, weapon rising, and then a third came in through the window.

Zoë tried to raise her weapon, but it took her a heartbeat to realize that somewhere in all the disorientation, she'd dropped her shotgun. One of the mercs pointed his rifle at her.

An arrow lanced through the mercenary's throat. He jerked and fell backward.

Inara had Zoë's back, and the veteran shot forward, drawing the knife from her belt. The third mercenary was most of the way through the window when Zoë slammed her left hand into his jaw, hard enough to knock his head back and up, and then jammed her knife into his exposed throat. In the flash from the remaining Talon's firing weapon, she saw the soldier's surprise before she pulled the blade free and shoved him out the window.

The last mercenary must have sensed her, because he spun toward Zoë, rifle leveling at her. She hurled herself at him before he could fire.

He pulled the trigger, but his aim was off from spinning around so suddenly. Pain lanced through Zoë's right forearm, and she jerked, the knife falling from her fingers.

The mercenary spun sideways then, an arrow jamming into his bicep. His eyes widened in shock, and then Zoë body-checked him with her left shoulder, and they both went to the hardwood floor.

* * *

"Yep."

"Mm-hm."

The bridge of _Serenity _was silent, lacking even the thrumming of working engines. The Firefly was quiet and inactive in the docking bay. Kaylee was lying back in the co-pilot's chair, staring at the ceiling, while Wash was seated perfectly still, desperately trying to balance a palm tree on his head.

"Nothing going on," Kaylee whined. "Wish I was with the Cap'n. Or Simon."

"Uh-huh," Wash replied. A second later, the palm tree toppled off his head, and he leapt out of the chair, falling to his knees and letting out a melodramatic cry of anguish.

Kaylee sighed, and went back to being torturously bored.

* * *

A trio of mercenaries were sweeping through the east end of the abbey, opposite the side where their compatriots had met River and Jayne. They had already stepped over the corpses of two more priests and a pair of civilians, the former of whom had been armed. They kept constant radio contact with the rest of the team, but the fact that one of the fireteams was no longer reporting was a worrying sign.

Still, they kept to their assignment, which was to clear out this end of the building and provide a flanking position for the rest of the assault force.

They moved into the kitchens, and a gunshot came in close, ripping through the wall next to them. They turned as one well-trained unit, two men shooting the one who'd fired on them – another priest – while the other covered the rest of the room. As the priest fell, there came a sudden yell, a dozen voices, and then men and women rushed into the kitchen from all directions, wielding a number of improvised weapons.

The Talon soldiers opened fire. The first few villagers dropped almost immediately, but the rest piled in. Inside the kitchen, confines were tight and there was no room to maneuver. The mercenaries held down their triggers, and blood flew and bodies fell.

One of the mercs was grabbed from behind, and a knife stabbed wildly at his head and neck. He spun, throwing off the attacker, but was then hit in the temple with an improvised club. He fell, and the villagers fell upon him in turn. Another mercenary tried shooting his way clear and scrambled over a table. Arms grabbed his neck, shoulders, and legs, and he was brought down to the floor.

The last pushed his way free, only to get smashed across the face by Elder Pherson. The merc stumbled sideways, and the village leader scooped up the shotgun dropped by the fallen priest. He leveled it at the man as he stood, and shot him in the chest.

"That was for my goddamn village," he snarled, and shot the mercenary again.

Pherson turned and looked over the survivors from the ambush group. A dozen men and women had rushed into the room, and only five of them were still standing. Two more were badly wounded, one so horrible that it was unlikely he'd live, but they'd won.

They weren't going down without a fight, damn it.

* * *

They'd worked their way around the outer buildings of the abbey, and were moving through the gatehouse. No other mercenaries met them, but they'd passed a few bodies, which pissed Jayne off, and made River colder and more upset. They finished the sweep and were about to exit the gatehouse and into the courtyard when River jerked to a halt.

"Wait!" she hissed, grabbing Jayne's arm. If he'd wanted to, he could have kept going and likely dragged her behind him like loose bailing wire, but he came to a halt at the door. They could hear gunfire outside.

"They're about . . . to hurt – no, attack the . . . God-house . . . chapel," she said, words slow and halting. "Zoë and Simon and Inara need help."

"Can't let the others get away, though," Jayne said, and she nodded.

"I'll help Zoë," she said. "Won't see me coming." She paused, eyes unfocused. "Ten left. Eight in the courtyard, two here in the gatehouse, second floor." She frowned. "No, seven." There was an explosion. "No, now six. Five."

"I'll get them two in the gatehouse," he said. "You sneak around the courtyard, hit 'em from behind."

River nodded, clenching her sword, and then punched Jayne in the shoulder lightly.

"Don't be careful," she said, "Be scary and painful."

"Right," he replied, and they split apart, Jayne hurrying upstairs while River slid into the courtyard, keeping to the columns holding up the breezeways.

He pounded up the stairs, Vera at the ready. He knew why the bad guys were up there, and exactly where they would be. After all, Jayne had scouted the area like he'd been wanting to attack this place, and he knew the upstairs of the gatehouse had a couple of rooms with windows that gave perfect firing positions into the courtyard and the outer grounds around the gate.

Both mercenaries were in the storage room that looked into the courtyard. One was firing out the window while the other was covering his back, watching the doorway into the room. He'd heard footsteps approaching, and had probably expected another mercenary to be on the way up.

Jayne didn't let him recover from that error. He burst up the stairs and into the room with Vera at his shoulder, and by the time the Talon mercenary realized Jayne wasn't friendly, Vera had sent two heavy armor-piercing slugs through his chest. The other merc spun toward Jayne, but a shift a half-inch to the left and two more rounds dropped him before he'd turned halfway.

Jayne momentarily debated between whether to cover River from overhead or to deal with the mercs outside. After a second, he hurried to the other room. Girl could handle herself.

Jayne settled in at the window looking out over the grounds, and immediately saw the vehicles the bad guys had used to get there, parked about fifty meters from the gate on the grass. They were a pair of heavy hovering transports, each able to carry maybe a dozen men. There were two drivers, one for each vehicle, and they were standing beside their vehicles, weapons ready. Two more men were further back, standing maybe seventy-five meters from the entrance, carrying long-barreled rifles.

Jayne could guess who took out their sentries.

He debated who to kill. It was a fun little deductive game he played sometimes, figuring out who in a particular group of dangerous folks he'd need to kill first. The drivers could get their vehicles moving, but the snipers might be able to kill him right back.

Jayne grunted, settled in behind Vera's scope, and carefully held his breath. Two targets inside one hundred meters, two more inside fifty. He could get them, no trouble. He inhaled, exhaled, stilled his breath, and went perfectly rigid.

_Blam. Blam._

Shift. Acquire targets. Adjust for movement.

_Blam. Blam._

Jayne looked out, noted the lack of movement otherwise, and nodded.

Four black-armored figures lay dead in the dirt, and good riddance.

* * *

When a man _dies_ – _or a woman, no need to be sexist_ – it leaves _something_.

Not a stain, or any mark that stood and left an impression. Such things _were poetic notions_ left by people who never saw death with _**empathic eyes**_.

Death was an ending, but _**emotion from life**_ hung in the air_, abruptly cut off._ It was like a song that ended with no warning, or a painting that ended in blankness, or a page of text that cut off mid-sentence.

There should have been **something** there but there wasn't, and death was always _tinged_ with powerful emotion – anger, pain, terror, sadness, grief, disbelief, an amalgam of all of the above. That ending was a telltale marker, and every death had its own unique flavor of emotion, thought, perceptions, and impressions that all ended at once.

_-his name is Willis Gardner. He is a corporal. He is trained in close combat and specializes in shotguns. He had been born on Greenleaf in the township of Randville, had two sisters before he'd left home to join a mercenary group after serving a stint in the militia. The job didn't appeal to him and he planned to leave after they got finished here and go home, and he can feel cold steel and an electric shock run through his neck right as a small, slender hand grips his chin and yanks it back and then he is bleeding and fire flies across his throat and his weapon falls from his hands and what is happening he's dying how is he dying-_

When River Tam slit the mercenary's throat and his **blood** ran out over her forearm, she felt the entire torrent of **shock**** and terror **_**and humanity**_and**personal history** punching into her. It _rolled and twisted_ over her as she stepped past him, and the **weapon** stalked along, not caring about the emotion, while the _girl_ simply curled up and tried to keep afloat.

Maybe thirty seconds after she cut his aorta, the emotion _cut off_.

Blood poured off her fingers, _hot and sticky and wet_, while her eyes and her mind hunted down the next target.

_we have to kill them all_

More _spots_ on her hands, more blood _**on her mind**_ that wouldn't wash away.

The organic killing machine, _the living weapon_, continued on her way. She wanted to say it was just carrying her along, but it wasn't. Without the code-phrase, the weapon couldn't kill unless she let it kill.

She let _it_ grab the next man by the hair, yank his head back, and _bring Laertes across his throat._

_-his name is Dortman Hargrove. He is a private. He was born on a different moon of Zeus. He specializes in vehicle maintenance. His mother is dead, his father is-_

* * *

Bullets ripped into the backside of the mule, deforming and deflecting off the metal. Mal crouched low in the driver's spot while Book fired controlled, individual shots. The Captain was now very, very glad that he'd had the foresight to have Kaylee and Jayne weld armored plating onto the rear of the new mule.

"I count three," Book reported, ducking behind the backseat. He removed the rifle's magazine and checked it. "Down to half, then it's my pistol."

Mal grunted, checking the interior of the mule. He'd left his own rifle in the seat, and he dragged it up. It snagged on the second weapon he'd packed, more for good luck than any practical purpose, and he had to shake to get the strap loose. Book took the weapon as Mal held it up, nodding his thanks.

Mal kept the mule careening along through the rough, mountainous terrain, but he knew he couldn't evade their pursuers for long. The terrain was rocky but relatively flat, and in the direction he was headed – back toward the village, Mal noted – there was nothing but rolling hills studded with boulders for kilometers ahead.

"Stupid, stupid," Mal muttered. "Could have lost them in the canyons, instead we ran this way. _Gorram_ stupid . . . ."

Book fired another pair of measured shots. Return fire was harsh and swift, a dozen bullets slamming into the backside of the mule. Book fired once more, and the incoming shots slackened.

"Two now," the priest reported. "One wounded." He stood up and then immediately dropped.

A heartbeat later, the pursuing transport rammed into the rear of the mule.

Book was pitched forward against the back of the passenger seat, but the old man kept his weapon pointed up in the air so it wouldn't accidentally fire. Mal swerved sideways out of reflex, and the Talon transport cut inside his turn to slam into the left flank of the mule. The driver was nearly neck-and-neck with Mal.

He glanced over, and ducked as the second mercenary in the back of the transport jabbed his shotgun toward the Captain and opened fire. A solid slug from the gun ripped through the point where Mal's head had been and punched through the passenger-side door. The Talon pumped the shotgun to fire another shell, and Mal jammed on the brakes. There was a squeal of metal on metal, and the bulky Talon transport tore out ahead of them.

Mal tore out his pistol, cursing under his breath as the big Talon vehicle whirled toward them, the shooter lining up another shot. He leveled the weapon, and Book rose beside him. Both men opened up, and the mercenary had to dive for cover. The driver, meanwhile, brought the heavy hovercraft around to face the mule, and jammed on the accelerator.

The transport roared up to speed and shot toward Mal and Book, a lumbering yet frighteningly fast battering ram. It was at least three times as heavy as the mule; if it rammed them, Mal knew it would smash them virtually flat. The sensible tactic was to turn and keep running, but Mal knew that would just let the bigger, heavier, and faster mercenary transport catch them again.

Instead, he accelerated straight toward them.

"Keep 'em pinned, preacher!" Mal yelled, and Book fired another couple of shots. He then dropped the spent rifle and pulled up the second one, and resumed firing as the two transports hurtled toward one another. He half-expected Book to say something about how insane this was, but the preacher just kept shooting. The Talon gunner dropped behind the seat, probably bracing himself.

Mal locked eyes with the Talon driver, who was grinning.

"Smile all you want," Mal whispered, and gave the mercenary a jaunty grin of his own. His left hand kept them steady, while his right reached across to the other weapon he'd stowed on the mule.

They careened in closer, and an eyeblink before the two vehicles would collide head-on, Mal swerved to the right. The Talon driver blinked as Mal brought the mule into a close pass, almost near enough to reach out and touch.

Then Mal raised his lucky sledgehammer and pounded the driver's face in.

The Talon transport whipped out of control as the driver's head snapped back, and both of the passengers were flung out of the vehicle. Mal swerved the mule around to a halt, and saw the mercenaries' vehicle flipping over, bodies tumbling along the dirt for a dozen, then two dozen meters. The overturned transport came to a final clattering halt about fifty meters from where they'd passed.

No one stirred, and the rocky badlands were silent save for the heavy breathing from Mal and Book and the whine of the mule's engine.

"You hit, Shepherd?" Mal asked after a moment.

"No," Book whispered, safeing the rifle and setting it aside. He lowered his head and whispered quietly under his breath while Mal put away his sledgehammer.

He waited for Book to finish praying for the dead men, and checked the mule's onboard map. He guessed they were about a kilometer west of the village's remains now. They needed to get back to the abbey. If the mercs were watching the village, they might be canvassing the surrounding area, and the abbey would draw them like flies to a carcass.

Mal looked up and around at the rolling badlands, suddenly feeling a mite paranoid. He watched for anyone else who could be approaching or keeping an eye on them, and saw a tree in the distance. It was an oddity, and caught his attention for a second, especially because he saw something else alongside it, hanging from the boughs.

Mal froze as he realized what he was looking at. He'd spent enough time on the Border and Rim, and he recognized the aftermath of a hanging.

"Shepherd," Mal said, once Book ended his prayer. "I think we may have someone else for you to speak words over."

A hanging on the Rim wasn't anything new, but out here, in these lands, and with what was happening right now, Mal knew it might be too relevant to ignore. They were out here to find clues as to what was going on, after all.

He brought the mule to bear on the distant tree and started toward it.

* * *

She punched him in the face, smashing his nose. The mercenary beneath Zoë snarled, and lashed back at her with his right hand, his other pinned by her side. She twisted aside from the blow, but it clipped her shoulder. He was bigger and stronger, and the blow shoved her back and up, just enough to get her weight off his other arm.

The mercenary's left hand shot up, drawing his knife and slashing it at her stomach.

Zoë lurched sideways off the Talon soldier as the knife cut toward her, and her hands lanced out. They caught the merc's arm at the wrist and the middle of his arm.

She twisted and wrenched with all of her strength, and the mercenary's wrist snapped backward. He let out a snarl of agony and the knife clattered to the floor.

Zoë scrambled back up onto her feet away from the mercenary, who was trying to get up himself. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Zoë was impressed by his ability to ignore pain, even as she kicked him in the face. He flopped back to the floor, and she kicked him again for good measure, this time in the temple. He went still, unconscious or dead, she couldn't tell.

Boots hit the floor behind her.

Another mercenary was coming through the window, with a friend right behind him.

Zoë didn't think. She snatched up the knife the last mercenary dropped and powered into the lead Talon soldier. The man's partner was most of the way through the window when an arrow slammed into his thigh, and a burst of gunfire hammered his torso, throwing him to the floor.

The remaining mercenary was expecting the charge and set his feet. When she slammed into him, he skidded backwards and snapped his weapon's butt up into Zoë's face. She ducked enough that the gunbutt just clipped her jaw, but the impact shoved her backward and left Zoë momentarily disoriented. He brought the rifle's stock down again, hammering her shoulder. Her left arm went completely numb, and Zoë dropped down to one knee.

Out the corner of her eye, Zoë saw Katie, curled up behind a pew and eyes wide with terror.

The girl's eyes sent cold rage through her, and gave Zoë a flash of clarity through the pain. She scrambled sideways before the man could kick her or smash her head in, and the knife swept out in a vicious thrust. Zoë buried the blade halfway into the mercenary's knee. He wrenched his leg away, howling and pulling the blade from her fingers.

She didn't give him the chance to recover, and leapt up after him. The mercenary spun back toward Zoë and was slammed off his feet. Her left arm was still numb, so she simply slammed it down onto the mercenary's weapon to keep it pinned while she tried to rip the knife free of his leg.

His head snapped forward, forehead impacting along her neck and collarbone, while his left arm swung up and hit her in the temple. Zoë was knocked sideways, and the mercenary shoved as hard as he could, throwing her off him. He rolled over on top of her, left hand slamming down onto her right shoulder and pinning her down, while he wrestled the assault rifle around to shoot her.

Zoë's fingers fumbled over the knife, slick with blood, and she yanked on the blade. The Talon soldier tensed up in agony, and she returned the favor by headbutting him, this time in the nose. He jerked back, and she wrenched the knife free of his leg. The Talon flopped backward, blood gushing from his leg, and his free arm flailed around to grab a pew.

The Talon started to stand, swinging his rifle toward Zoë as he rose on his good leg, towering over her.

He suddenly jerked, eyes rolling back into his head, and Zoë flung the knife into his neck. It didn't bury into his skin, but it slashed open his neck before tumbling aside. She heard the sound of metal sliding through flesh, and then the Talon soldier fell to the side, a deep blade wound in his back and the smell of charred flesh in the air. His weapon clattered to the floor beside her.

Someone else loomed up behind the mercenary, a long blade in hand. Zoë grabbed the dropped weapon and raised it, fear and anger and rage and that boiling maternal need to keep these children safe overriding reason and sense. She leveled the weapon at the figure towering overhead. Blood dripped and sizzled on the drawn sword.

"Zoë?"

She jerked, recognizing the soft, confused voice, and blinked.

The anger and fear and protectiveness remained, but she pushed it back. Zoe blinked, closed her eyes, and then inhaled. She held the breath for a couple of seconds before releasing it.

As she did so, she heard the quiet and the silence, save sobs and moans of pain. The noise of combat had passed.

She opened her eyes, and saw River standing over her, face dead in the center of Zoë's sights. Worry, confusion, and a fear etched across the girl's features, and she gripped her sword uncertainly.

A heartbeat passed.

Zoë lowered the rifle, shaking her head. Why the hell was she pointing a gun at River?

The weapon clattered to the floor beside her, and she looked back up at the girl. The fear had vanished, replaced by worry, and she was extending a hand toward Zoë. She took it, thanking River quietly for the rescue.

"There anymore?" Zoë asked, to which River shook her head.

"We had to kill them all," she whispered.

Zoë nodded, understanding, and looked across the chapel. Simon and Inara were with the civilians, Inara checking for injuries while Simon hurriedly tended to the wounds of one of the priests. The other lay still beside him, and his face was covered.

She tried to walk over to assist them, but River stopped her and gently guided her to sit in one of the pews. She settled down, hands shaking, her left arm tingling as sensation returned to it. River looked over Zoë once and nodded, evidently satisfied that she wasn't that badly hurt, and drifted away.

Zoë looked down to her stomach and touched it, feeling he child within, a baby that had come so close to being hurt or dying in the battle.

Was it worth risking the child she wanted to have with Wash?

A minute later, as Zoë pondered that question, she felt someone beside her, and looked up. Katie crawled into the pew beside her, and Zoë saw the fear faded, replaced by relief and shock.

She found herself reaching out and hugging the little girl to her side. Katie hugged against Zoë tightly and started quietly crying in relief. The battered veteran looked down at the girl as she hugged her and whispered to her that everything was safe now.

* * *

Mal stepped out of the mule, following Book as he approached the hanging corpse, and something struck him as very wrong.

The body was only a couple of days old. It hadn't yet begun to decay like it would have if it had been hanging there long. The dead man was young, maybe mid-twenties, with shaggy, lank hair and a long, weather-beaten coat. He looked uninjured, save for having a bad case of being dead, but Mal saw bloodstains on the coat. But most telling was his hands: they were unbound.

"Suicide," Book whispered. Mal nodded, and stopped to crouch. He thought he saw some tracks around the base of the tree, but they were old and erased by wind. He crouched and moved around the tree. He thought he saw a glint of metal in the brush around the tree's base.

"His hands," Book remarked, circling the corpse, expression sad but thoughtful. "There are defensive wounds on them. Bruises and cuts."

"I know why," Mal added, stepping back around the tree trunk. He held up a long, serrated knife, stained with blood. Book looked at the blade, and sucked in his breath. Even without comparing it, he knew.

The blade matched the wounds they'd seen on Forthill's body.

"Did this fella kill the preacher?" Mal asked.

"Looks an awful lot like it," Book agreed. "Unless someone planted that knife."

"This far out?" Mal asked. "Not likely."

"But the body isn't old," Book said. "Couple of days at most, which would put his death after the village was attacked."

Mal froze, and stared at Book for a moment, a sudden, cold realization running through him.

"Preacher, I think we've been acting stupid since we got here," he murmured. Book frowned.

"Pardon?" he asked.

"Shepherd," Mal said. "Why didn't we ask the folks here why your friend left the abbey in the first place?"

A long moment of silence struck the two men as they realized that.

"No one at the abbey even mentioned Jonathan after we told them why we were there," Book added quietly. He shared a long look with Mal, and the Captain nodded.

"Something is very un-rightful here," he whispered. "We're supposed to be smarter than this."

Book took a quick picture of the corpse, and despite Mal's annoyed misgivings about taking the time to do so, he cut down the dead man. He agreed that they had no time to bury the body, but the mule had some diesel fuel on hand, and a foul-smelling gasoline pyre would do. Book whispered over the dead man's body after Mal had checked the corpse for other clues, then they took the knife, cremated the corpse, and departed.

They didn't say it, but the two men silently agreed that they would keep what they found out here quiet until they knew what was really going on.

* * *

In the silence following the battle, Jayne hurried down the stairs to find River walking toward him out of the chapel. Blood splattered her clothes, her sword was still in hand, and she moved with the fluid grace of an athlete after long exercise, all limber motion with a glaze of sweat and heavy breathing.

It was horribly distracting.

The emotion in her eyes told him different, though.

She slid the sword into its sheath as she approached, and it locked in place.

"Everyone okay?" he asked. She nodded.

"Zoë is battered, but alive," she said. "Her baby is safe. Simon and Inara are not hurt." She paused, and pain flickered through her. "Sixteen people we were supposed to protect are dead."

Jayne exhaled, looking away, and tried not to feel bad about that. He failed; thinking of these folks brought back memories of the mudders.

"Damn," he finally whispered. "Any mercs still livin'?"

"One," she said. "Unconscious in the chapel."

Jayne nodded, and cracked his knuckles. She pursed her lips and looked away for a moment, and she suddenly looked horribly vulnerable.

Before he knew what he was doing, he reached out and touched her shoulder, and then his hand moved to her chin and lightly brushed her jaw. She jerked away at the unexpected touch on her face, and stared up at him.

"Uh, you okay?" he asked. She shuddered, met his eyes, and then shook her head.

"Spots," she hissed. "Spots on my arms and in my head." She turned and started to walk away. "Must clean."

He walked after her for a moment, but then stopped, scowling.

_Gorrammit_, he wasn't her brother or her father or her . . . well, definitely not _that_, and dammit, he wasn't anyone who should worry himself over her craziness.

Jayne grumbled, straightened his shoulders, and started for the chapel. He had a merc who needed to be trussed up and asked about.

* * *

Two hours after the last of the mercenaries were cleared away, Simon had finished treating the wounded and sorting the bodies. He limped across the abbey, leg hurting where it had been battered and stomped in the chaos of the battle. An overwhelming weariness weighed down his limbs,a nd all he wanted was to go to sleep - preferably in a bed with Kaylee.

But he had one last patient to check in on.

He heard the water running in the abbey's showers, and when he entered, the first thing he saw was a pile of bloodstained clothes: one of his button-up shirts, and a pair of Mal's trousers. Laertes sat atop the pile of clothes, sheathed and locked. Simon turned toward the stalls, and saw one of them was open.

River was within.

She was curled up in an upright ball, back to the wall, arms around her knees. Her skin was shriveling in the constant flow of water, and despite the steam, he could see she was shivering. River was still clad in her underwear, as if she was afraid to take them off.

"River?" he asked, stepping up beside the stall. He knew she hated bathrooms and showers, making this even stranger than usual.

She mumbled something, impossible to make out over the hiss of the shower.

Simon looked to the bloodstained clothes, and remembered the last time he'd seen her like this, after she'd killed Ott's crew. He understood, and fetched a towel, before reaching inside the shower to turn the water off.

She looked up at him as the metal squealed and the hot water ceased, still shivering, and nodded. She stood up shakily, took the offered towel, and gave him a small, appreciative smile.

They didn't need to say anything. Simon understood, and her smile thanked him without a word for still being her brother.

* * *

Inara was waiting when Mal and Book returned, the mule careening across the badlands and through the abbey grounds. They slowed when they saw the bodies Jayne had left in the field, and when they got out of the mule at the gate, they had their weapons in hand. However, they relaxed when she went out to meet them.

Inara resisted the urge to grab Mal and hug him as tightly as she could.

Mal's questions were worried, but predictable. The crew were okay, she told him. Many of the priests and civilians had been hurt, some killed. They'd seen off the entire Talon force, no escapees.

When Mal finally relaxed, she saw something else behind his expression. When they walked inside, he was looking back and forth, as if suspicious, but he said nothing.

Both Mal and Book had that haunted look in their eyes and that guarded body language. They had seen something out there, something they didn't want to share right now, and they were suspicious of a threat inside the abbey.

She walked with Mal, but didn't pry. He didn't want to talk about that they'd seen, not yet, but she would get it out of him when he was ready.

In the meantime, Inara knew what she would need to do. Mal and Book were suspicious of someone, and she would need to keep an eye out for them, even if hey didn't realize she knew.

But when he looked at her, she caught a glint in his eye, and a tiny bit of a smirk in his features, that told her he knew she knew, and he trusted her to know.

There was something more going on here, that much was clear, and they needed to find out what.

* * *

The bodies were removed, and the wounded were gathered in the chapel where they could be watched and tended. The uninjured stayed with them, and as the night wore on, MacCauliffie led a prayer and funeral for the dead. Even the slain Talons were given a proper service. They didn't have space or manpower to bury the dead, so they were left outside, lined up under tarps and blankets.

As the night wore on, everyone settled down to rest, as best they could - except Zoë, who maintained a silent, wary vigil. Her wounds were bandaged and she'd eaten and taken a couple of hours of sleep, but tonight, she remained wide awake as she stood guard over the sleeping children and adults. Candles and lamps light the interior of the chapel with soft orange and yellow light.

She sat in a pew, shotgun in hand, long rifle beside her on the floor, and with Katie sleeping, curled up beside her with her head on her lap. Zoë stroked the girl's hair, shotgun ready, as she waited for the sun to rise over Victoria.

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**Been a while since I wrote a really action-heavy chapter, and this one took a lot out of me. There wa sa lot of material to cover. One thing I wanted to do that I haven't been able to thus far is show how absolutely deadly Zoe really can be.

Also, this chapter was originally intended to have River running around in Mal's longcoat, but that's just silly. :p

Until next chapter . . . .


	55. Chapter Six: Flight

**File Reconstruction 74% Complete**

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* * *

_**Chapter Six: Flight**_

The ground shivered, dust rising and dirt faintly shifting as he walked between the AA-61 Widows. The trio of light gunships was sitting at the far end of the compound, engines running with that low, teeth rattling thrum as they waited to lift off. Normally he wouldn't leave them on idle like that – it played hell with maintenance – but the team he'd sent out earlier hadn't come back, which put him on edge.

Commander Bascjo wasn't the type to get anxious easily, but the fact that an entire platoon was missing after heading out to raid that abbey was not a good sign – especially when they'd finally gotten in touch with the survivors. Apparently, some new people had come into the scene, folks who were both armed and capable enough that two of them took down an entire squad.

The Commander was a bulky man, all muscle and bone and heavy armor that didn't seem to ever bother him in this heat, and he muscled through the prefabricated camp and toward his command tent with the authority of a man who wasn't to be questioned. The entire base was built of prefabricated structures, lines of canvas tents and quickly-assembled storage buildings that could be dropped from an aircraft in short order. He heard hundreds of voices as he walked through, mercenary soldiers moving with purpose and direction through the camp. They weren't as disciplined as Alliance troops, but they were certainly competent enough.

Or they should have been, considering forty men had disappeared, died, or been seriously wounded yesterday.

The command tent wasn't a state-of-the-art facility like it was in Alliance territory; there were a couple of men at radio banks, another manning a fold-out table with a double-monitor computer terminal, and couple of his senior officers standing around a map of the local region. The map was on light-paper, so they could adjust its appearance as needed, unlike the higher-end tactical displays the Alliance used with their fully three-dimensional holograms and such.

"Word from recon?" Bascjo asked as he entered, and his second, Major Lyons, nodded.

"They're set up outside the church as best they can be," he replied. "Terrain limits line of sight. But from the reports, it looks like they _did_ manage to take down Third Platoon. No survivors."

"So I was right," Bascjo whispered, an angry edge in his voice. "These folks have some mercenary help, seems like."

"Recon is reporting that it looks like they're preparing to evacuate," added Lyons. Bascjo frowned and nodded.

"Best we meet them," he growled. "Send the word to load up the birds. Airborne configuration. We're going in fast and hard."

* * *

_**Four Hours Earlier**_

* * *

"Are we safe?" Mal asked. River's eyes went distant for several seconds.

"No one is safe," she murmured. "A satellite, disabled ship, or misplaced toilet could deorbit and level this entire valley and we could do nothing about it in the next few seconds."

Silence filled the little room on the second level of the abbey, overlooking the ruined gate. The whole of Serenity's crew that had traveled to the church stared at her for a second, and she blinked.

"Did she say we're about to die from someone's shitter?" Jayne asked after a moment.

"No one is listening," River confirmed.

"Well then, that's enough creepy for now," Mal said. "What needs doing now is information. We didn't find the clues where we were expecting, but we found some disturbing things nonetheless that are telling us something's amiss."

"What do you mean?" Simon asked. He stood by his sister, who was watching the interior window that looked out into the courtyard. She was pointedly avoiding the bloodstain where Jayne had killed the mercenary who had been manning that window.

"It's our suspicion that someone hasn't been forthcoming with information," Book said. "Specifically, someone here in the abbey."

"Who?" Inara asked. "Someone from the village, or one of the priests?"

"We don't rightly know yet," Mal said. "All I know is the only folks we can trust are our own selves."

"We found the man who murdered Jonathan," Book said. "I mean, Father Forthill. He was apparently from the village, and he killed himself afterward."

"Why?" Zoë asked, from the doorway leading downstairs. "How? And when?"

"Don't know on the first," Mal said. "Knife on the second, but it wasn't clean. As for the when, we're suspecting in the last few days, after the merc attack. Figure the fella did Forthill, walked a few kilometers to that tree, and hung himself."

"And no one mentioned this to us," Simon whispered, and the wheels spun in his mind. "No one has even mentioned Forthill at all beyond when we first arrived."

"Well, that ain't sittin' with me," Jayne grumbled. Vera was slung across his chest, and he was fiddling with the weapon. Everyone excepting Simon and Inara were still armed, and the latter had their weapons close at hand, in the same room. They were all on edge after the Talon Company attack.

"I haven't noticed any duplicity," Inara said, brow furrowed in thought. "No one is hiding anything from us. At least not knowingly."

"Could someone be fooling you?" Zoë asked, frowning. "Someone that knows what to hide?" The Companion nodded.

"Certainly possible," she said. "But they'd need to be experienced, or naturally very good at covering up body language."

"Hm," Mal murmured. "Albatross, you noticed anything?"

River looked away from the window. Her eyes flicked across the room, to everyone. They lingered on Jayne for a heartbeat, before focusing on Mal.

"Fear," she said. "Worry. Soaking into the walls, like runny paint. Chokes." She shook her head. "Can't make anything out. Its not a radar. I think. Faulty metal detector that I keep dropping in the ocean."

A moment of silence followed, before Jayne nodded.

"Meanin' them folks are scared, and you're having trouble getting through it?" he asked. "Like jamming?"

River nodded.

"Normally it's not this bad," she said. "Lots of interference. Too much terror, confined."

"I can conjure why," Mal said, understanding. "But some folks here are like to know what's really going on and why them mercs are attacking."

"Speaking of that," Zoë cut in. "We need to worry about the next attack. Once they get word their team didn't report in from here, they're going to come after us with everything they've got."

"Agreed," Mal said. "This place ain't defensible either."

"Ain't nowhere safer in twenty klicks," Jayne grunted. "Nearest civilization we got is that little town where the train station was."

"Wait," Simon said, sitting up. "Yes. That could work." He paused, and everyone stared at him for a moment before he continued. "This is outside the Alliance's secured areas, correct?"

Mal nodded, frowning, and Zoë stepped forward, crossing her arms.

"You're suggesting we run to the Alliance for help?" she asked, voice skeptical.

"Only reason these mercenaries can prey on these folks here is because they got free reign to run around these parts of the moon," Mal pointed out. "They're a damn sight less likely to start shooting up innocent folks if the Alliance is nearby to ask questions."

"Quickest way out is through the train," Jayne said. "Train would be a hell of a lot more defensible on the move, too. About half of the route was on bridges over chasms, can't chase us with ground vehicles."

"Can we get everyone there?" Inara asked, to which Mal nodded.

"Jayne took out the drivers for their transports," the captain replied. "We've got enough lifting power to get the entire village and the rest of the priests to the train station. How long do you suspect we can move them out?"

"Within a couple of hours," Zoë said. "Not a whole lot of supplies or possessions these folks carried out with them. Just need to load up food and our weapons."

"Alright, let's get to it," Mal ordered. "Jayne, Doc, and myself will help load up the vehicles. River, 'Nara, Zoë, Book, meantime, ya'll ask around, see if we can figure out who knows more than they're letting on. Don't be obvious about it, though. Last thing we need is these folks getting suspicious."

"Captain," Book said as the other nodded. "These folks might not appreciate us taking charge and evacuating them. They're already a mite distrustful now."

"I'll deal with that," Mal said, and glanced to Jayne, who nodded and managed a tight grin.

* * *

Elder Pherson responded about as well as could be expected when Mal told him that they were evacuating.

"Who the hell put you in charge?" the Elder demanded. "You think you can just order us around?"

They were standing outside the chapel, the surviving villagers and priests gathering around as Mal explained the plan, with Jayne hanging behind him in case he needed to publicly relate. Zoë stood guard near the children, who watched nearby, the little dark-haired girl she'd taken to watching over leaning against her leg.

Pherson's face was turning red as he ranted at Mal, while the captain calmly stood in front of him, arms crossed, and waited for him to finish.

"How do we know you and your people weren't responsible for those mercenaries finding us?" Pherson continued. "And now you want us to go along with you, leaving the only safety we've found, and run to the Alliance? Do you think I'm an idiot?"

"Possibly," Mal replied in the moment of silence that followed. Pherson blinked.

"What?" he asked.

"I'm thinking perhaps you're a bit confused here," Mal said. "On account of the idea that we've been friendly and nice to you folks. I conjure most of you folks caught sight of our people defending the chapel over yonder, so you do know how good we are at our jobs."

"That just means you're good killers," Pherson growled. "I don't trust you, and I will not let you take my people away!"

Mal stared back, closed his eyes for a heartbeat, and then opened them, glaring at the idiot.

"My patience has well passed its middle," he hissed. "We really don't have time for this."

Mal's arm rocketed upward in a savage uppercut that crashed into Pherson's nose, rocking his head backward. The elder went toppling backward and fell to the stones, quite incapacitated.

Silence filled the courtyard, and the villagers recoiled a bit.

"This is how it's going to be," Mal said. His voice was loud and clear, free of malice but filled with that same commanding presence he kept in reserve until he needed it.

"By our best estimate, those mercenaries will be back here in six hours, maybe more, maybe less. As long as it takes them to realize their people aren't coming back. When they do, they will bring everyone they've got. They will kill every adult they find, and take every one of your kids."

Mal stopped, turning, and stared at the villagers and priests, sweeping his gaze over the shell-shocked and frightened survivors.

"My crew stopped them last time, but we've got no hope on the next go-around. They'll know we're here. They'll bring everything they've got. They'll kill us all. That ain't a guess on my part, its fact. Only way we're going to survive this is if we run."

At Mal's feet, Pherson started to stir. He sat up as Mal continued talking.

"My crew is here to help ya'll," Mal said. "Weren't expecting to help the helpless, but we've done it before, and for less coin than we're getting here. That's why anyone who's got the mind to can come with us. We'll get out everyone we can."

Pherson started to rise, but stopped at a rasp of steel on leather, followed by the zip-click of a readied pistol.

Mal glared down at Pherson through the sights of his sidearm.

"Now, you can help me help you, or you can stay here when the mercs come," he said, and his voice dropped with that deadly intensity. Blue eyes fixed Pherson, cold, calm, steady, and murderous.

"But none of you are damn well gonna stop me from helping them who want to go."

Pherson met Mal's eyes, but only for a moment, before looking away. Mal held that cold gaze for a couple seconds more, before lowering his pistol and stepping back.

"Anyone who wants to come, help us load the transports," Mal said, holstering his sidearm and walking away.

* * *

It took less time than he'd feared, but more time than he'd liked.

The civilians worked fast, Mal saw, and he helped them as best he could, loading up the wounded onto the transports. Pherson said nothing while they worked, only casting Mal hateful looks, which he responded to with jaunty smiles just to make him mad. It was childish and petty and deeply satisfying.

One of the transports, a smaller one, was loaded up with supplies and the other piece of cargo they had: the surviving mercenary, who was still unconscious. On that vehicle, Jayne rode shotgun – literally. The looks some of the villagers were throwing toward the unconscious man warned Mal that they might hurt the man if he was left unsupervised, and his crew still needed to question him.

An hour of loading and preparation later, most of the gear and supplies were stowed. Mal was finishing packing one of the transports when he caught a familiar yet pleasant scent, and turned to find Inara beside him. Even in the middle of this hell, she still managed to smell . . . nice. It was kind of aggravating.

"These folks forthcoming?" Mal asked quietly, stepping back from the transport as a couple of village men approached with the last of the food supplies.

"No," Inara replied. "We haven't been able to learn anything. They won't talk with me or anyone else."

"They holding back?" Mal asked, to which she shook her head.

"I suspect that they don't perfectly trust us," she said. "Your display in the courtyard earlier scared them. The last thing these people need is more fear on top of their grief."

"I had to get him in line," Mal said, and it came out more defensive than he liked. "Idiot doesn't know we're his best hope."

"I understand," she replied quickly, and laid a hand on his arm. "But we need to be careful. These people are just a few steps away from panicking."

He grumbled something in agreement, and she withdrew her hand.

"I tried to keep my questions from arousing suspicion," Inara continued. "I asked if they knew if anyone else survived, or if someone might be out there who hadn't found the abbey."

"Nothing, though?" Mal asked, and she nodded.

"But I know something is wrong," she continued. "There isn't anything specific, but from the way they carried themselves and responded to me . . . they know something they aren't telling us, but I'm not sure what."

Mal nodded, running a hand over his face. This was getting murkier by the minute. Finding all these clues was just resulting in more questions rearing their heads – and those questions were just as likely to get a bullet in him as the mercenaries.

"Mal?" she asked, and he looked back up at Inara.

"We'll figure this out on the way," he said. He gestured with his head toward the mule. "Let's finish loading up and move, before the sun blows up or some such."

Twenty minutes later, the badlands were rolling past, and the battle-scarred abbey was left behind. To Mal's surprise, all of the priests at the abbey had chosen to come along with them, at least until he asked McCauliffie.

"A Shepherd protects his flock, not stone and wood," the priest had explained.

Part of an hour passed as they hurried overland, crossing the kilometers between the abbey and the train station. As they drove, Mal spent some time on the radio, first checking to make sure a train was waiting for them. He'd called earlier that day, asking to book passage on the train that ran back to Alliance territory, and to his surprise they agreed to hold the train until they arrived. Maybe it was the money he'd offered. It also turned out the same train and engineer who had taken them out here in the first place was going to carry them back, which was a bit comforting.

The rest of the time he spent talking to Serenity.

_"So," _Wash asked as they drove. _"Do we have a plan for what to do with some sixty or so helpless, needy folks once we get them to safety?"_

"Working on it," Mal replied. "We'll keep you posted. Meantime, keep her engines warmed up, in case something bad happens while we're on the way."

_"Most of the route's going to be through Alliance no-fly zones," _Wash reminded him. _"I can't fly through that without some aerial wizardry."_

"Well, Merlin, that's what I hired you for," Mal reminded him

_"Figured myself to be more of a Dresden, actually," _Wash replied. _"Don't worry, though. If you need me, I'll be there."_

"That's what I like to hear, Wash," Mal replied.

The hovertrain was, as advertised, waiting at the station when the little convoy arrived. As soon as Mal got out of the mule, he had an unpleasant notion, that instinctive feeling he was being watched. It was like that time he'd been with Wash to sell the medicine, and he'd been jumped by Niska's goons. At the time, he'd passed it off as being watched by the men they were going to meet, but he recognized it now as a warning that he was being observed by folks with ill intent, to be poetic.

"Eyes," River murmured at his elbow, making him jump a little in surprise. He glanced down at her. Jayne lumbered past, carrying boxes on his shoulders, and Zoë walked with the children, tugging the little black-haired girl with her.

"Yeah," Mal said, nodding. "I feel 'em on me."

"Tromping boots, rumbling engines growling like hungry tigers," she said, and he wasn't sure if it was a reply.

"Yeah," he repeated. "Them our tigers or theirs?"

"Both," she muttered, shaking her head. "Can't be sure yet."

"Okay," he said, with a grunt. "If you get any clearer, let me know. Meantime, find Jayne. Once we get settled in, you and he need to talk to our guest."

River nodded, and looked up at the mid-morning sky.

"Yes. Jayne is a better interrogator," she said, and Mal clenched his fists. They both remembered the last time they'd questioned a mercenary, and they both knew why he was asking River and Jayne to do the questioning. She didn't say anything else.

River hurried off after Jayne a few moments later, while Mal went to help load up the train as quickly as they could. He managed three trips carrying loads of supplies until he encountered the portly, goggles-wearing engineer who manned and probably owned the train.

"Mornin', Captain," the man drawled, grabbing the box out of Mal's hands. "What's happening here? Looks less like passengers and more like refugees."

"A fair bit accurate," Mal replied, glad to see the man helping. "I'll explain it if you help me get this bunch aboard."

"Stowed," the engineer replied. "This is a train, not a boat. And sure enough, I'll give a hand."

Mal gave him the short version as they hurried to load the train. The engineer's expression steadily darkened as Mal told him about the village being preyed on by mercenaries, their findings at the Blue Sun labs, the second attack, and then their escape to the station.

"Hell, that's insane," the engineer said as they finished loading. His voice was dark and heavy, and he stepped back into the train engine car for a minute. He came back out a moment later, a double-barreled shotgun in hand. He loaded it, expression grim.

"You ain't objecting to us?" Mal asked, to which the engineer shook his head.

"I served in the militia," he growled in reply, and put on his orange helmet. He looked back up at Mal, the gesture having a finality to it that Mal understood perfectly. He didn't need to say anything else.

"Let's get these people out of here," the engineer said quietly, and climbed back up onto the engine of his train.

* * *

It took them a lot less time to get moving than it had to get everything loaded. Within thirty minutes the train was starting up and moving, and soon after they were flying over the landscape. A couple of passenger cars were devoted to the survivors, right behind the engine, while their cargo was loaded into another car. The vehicles were stowed further back.

Zoë was sitting with Katie, who was nodding off in the rear passenger car. Most of the children were nodding off, while the surviving priests stood guard over them, McCauliffie among them. Zoë waited until Katie was asleep before getting up and starting a patrol.

It wasn't actually a conscious decision, but she'd done it so often during the war that it came back without thinking of it. She started walking down the train, making sure everyone was secured.

She stepped into the cargo car, and found River and Jayne, the latter sitting beside the unconscious mercenary. He was tied quite securely to a chair. Jayne was sharpening his knife, while River was reading a looseleaf paper of some kind while perched on the crates.

"That is vaguely unsettling," she remarked as she saw them. They both glanced up, and Jayne shrugged.

"Girl told me he weren't in any condition to be woke up yet," he grouched, and slid the whetstone over his knife again. "Wanted to get started early," he added, voice petulant.

Zoë nodded, and stepped past the slightly creepy tableau, trying to avoid remembering the last time she'd seen something similar. In that case, she'd been in River's place, with Mal her opposite. Zoë threaded between the crates, and started for the rear, when she heard the thump of boots on the floor behind her.

She glanced back, and saw River standing behind her, having hopped off the crate. The noise was intentional; River could easily not make a sound unless she wanted to.

"Something wrong?" Zoë asked, and River frowned, face screwing up in thought for a moment before she spoke.

"Do you trust me?" she asked.

"What?" Zoë replied, a bit confused at the odd question.

"Am I trusted?" River asked quietly. "Yesterday, the shotgun was ready." River put a hand over her heart. "Ready to go here. It . . . scared me."

Zoë rocked back a bit on her heels. The fight in the chapel yesterday rushed back into her thoughts, and she could again see herself leveling her shotgun at River as she stood over her. Zoë closed her eyes and shook her head.

"That was . . ." she inhaled, and then exhaled. "That was a mistake. Adrenaline. I was scared. I shouldn't have been . . . ."

_Second rule of handling firearms_, she remembered. _Always verify your target before firing._ A rule she'd nearly broken from fear.

"I understand," River said, nodding. "But do you trust me? Laertes made you worried."

Zoë glanced down at the sword, belted at her waist. She mulled over that, knowing what she'd been thinking of when she'd first learned River had the blade. She looked back up, meeting the girl's eyes, and a moment later, they narrowed. Not a lot, but just a tiny hairline of tightening in her expression.

"I'll be honest with you, River," Zoë said. "I know you'll do whatever it takes to protect your family, and people who need protecting. You wouldn't hurt us intentionally." She paused, but didn't break eye contact. She knew River understood exactly what she was thinking. "But that sword has a lock for a reason, River. I _want_ to trust you. That's about all I can say."

River was silent, staring back for long moments. Zoë was surprised at how mature the girl had gotten over the last year. She was still young, but she'd developed into something a lot stronger than she'd been before Miranda. Prior to then, River might never have asked this question, maybe too afraid to ask, or simply unable to.

But that didn't change anything. River was unpredictable. She still wasn't entirely sane. She had emotional scars for an entire battalion of traumatized veterans, and she knew all of that. Like Zoë had said, there was a reason the sword had a lock, and River had proposed it herself. But at least Zoë was honest about that assessment.

River nodded again, and then smiled. It was a pained smile, but still.

"Thank you," River said. "For explaining." Zoë nodded back, and put a hand on the girl's shoulder. It was a reassuring gesture she likely understood. River shivered for a moment at the touch, and Zoë suddenly had another flash of understanding.

River didn't have a mother. Or at least, not a mother that mattered or deserved that name. Was that why she'd asked that question? Or was Zoë just projecting?

There was a mumble from the front of the train car, and River looked up. Jayne rose to his feet, popping his knuckles, and glanced over to River. She nodded, and glanced back to Zoë.

"Talk later," she said. It was almost a question, and Zoë nodded in agreement.

"Later."

The girl moved back to the front of the car to help Jayne, and Zoë resumed her patrol.

* * *

An hour passed since the train took off, and the refugees – that was the only word suitable for them now – had begun to settle down. Book found a quiet spot in one of the cars set aside for the passengers, and he found a moment to continue doing what had taken up his idle time over the last few months.

"-Mathias and his cronies don't understand," the voice whispered into the Shepherd's ears through the headphones. _"They think you can resist it. Its not like that, not like some hack science-fantasy book. We're dealing with real minds here. Real forces. Strong minds are worthless against them. If they want to enter your mind, rummage through your thoughts, or rewrite them, they can. And they will. The only defense is putting a bullet into the brain - yours or theirs."_

The recording paused.

_"I need a goddamn drink. End log."_

Book's brow furrowed, and he went to the next audio file. There were a lot of journals in Lancaster's data-mined bundle of files, but he hadn't encountered a sequential journal like this, and a detailed explanation of what they were dealing with over there.

The scale and the depth of the research was chilling, and he'd only scratched the surface. Lancaster hadn't lied to him; this could be worse than Miranda.

The next file opened with a long hiss of static, and Book fast-forwarded until he could make out speech.

_"-knowing what they can do is no defense. It's like knowing the name of the man beating you to death with a sledgehammer. Thank God most of them are barely cogent. Almost none of them understand what they're capable of. The treatments make sure of that, but its like blinding a bull. The bull can't see where its going, but it can still do damage. Most of the Inducers are insane, but that doesn't stop them from affecting everyone around them." _

_"This isn't like E-One-Three-Seven's murders. Not a calculated response to what we're doing by the assassin programming. They just spread out, they find a mind they can twist, and they shove it full of uncontrolled madness until it breaks. There's no malice, no thought or reason behind it. If they weren't so damned useful as test subjects, we'd already euthanize them. As it is, there's only a few who are useful. One-One-Nine esRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR-"_

That file was otherwise corrupted. The next file opened with the sound of a lighter igniting, and a quiet sip of a drink. A glass quietly _thunked_ down onto a wooden desk.

_"Mathias and his colleagues see the Empaths as the key. They're idiots. The Empaths are a bludgeon. A big shiny arrow to guide the troops. You can't achieve this sort of thing by policing. You need to alter it at the source. I know that sounds like the sort of thing that caused Miranda, but its true, and the only way we can do that is with the Inducers. One-One-Nine is proof. _

_"One-One-Nine is cogent, but what's more the subject knows how the mind works. The subject understands that emotion and feelings are not on-off switches - they're building blocks. Make a man hate someone, and he'll continue hating him without needing further prompting. He won't know why, but he'll associate hate regardless. Make a man love, and he'll keep loving. Make a man fear, and he'll stay afraid. Make a man apathetic, and he won't remember or care._

_"One-One-Nine _understands_. God. Imagine. An Inducer could have ended the Unification War without a shot being fired. They don't see that, but I do. I know. One-One-Nine is the key."_

The log ended without any warning, and Book found his hands trembling.

This was it. This was what Lancaster was warning him about.

_"Those bastards," _the next file opened up. The same voice as before was now frothing in rage. _"Those idiots! Short-sighted fools! 'We learned our lessons on Miranda!' they say! Cowards. They don't get it. They don't understand that the Inducers are the key to what we've been looking for, and they're tossing it aside in favor of their assassins and mind-readers!"_

The voice faded and intensified randomly, as if the speaker was moving around the room while yelling.

_"I'll prove it to them. The Inducers are the key, damn it! End log!"_

The final audio file in the journal opened up with the same voice, cold and calm. The unnamed scientist spoke in a quiet, controlled monotone. The contrast made Book's skin crawl.

_"They . . . can't do it. Not here. They can't do it here. We need to . . . be elsewhere. I'll show them. We will show them. Myself and One-One-Nine . . . Yes. Mathias will understand. Kondraki, signing out. For the last time."_

The recording ended.

Book blinked. He knew that name. He'd seen it somewhere else in the files, and took a moment running through the folders. Had it been under some of the images? Yes, he remembered. Photographs.

He opened the image files in each folder one by one, each showing tame pictures of faces or group portraits - excepting the ones he opened which showed horrific nightmares that promised to leave him awake at night. He flinched away from seeing those images again, and kept digging through the photos until he found the one he remembered.

It was an innocuous photo of three scientists, with their names printed below them. The one on the far left was a tall, graying man with rimless glasses and a warm, pleasant smile. Beneath him was the name "Kondraki, C."

Book tried connecting that face with the cold, possibly insane voice he'd heard, but couldn't. This man, whoever he was, had been driven insane by what he'd been studying, and . . . .

Book frowned, and looked closer. Kondraki's face seemed familiar. Where had he-

His heart leapt into his chest, and Book started skimming through the files on the datapad, realizing that he was right. The man's face was _familiar_.

He found the folder that contained the pictures they had taken at the Blue Sun lab yesterday, and opened them. He picked one specific photo and compared it to the one showing the grinning doctor.

On the right, Kondraki grinned at him. On the left, a corpse lay on the floor of the hydroponics lab, eyes blank in death, mouth hanging open, dried blood crusting around gaping, brutal wounds.

They matched.

Doctor Kondraki, a scientist working for the Academy and who had been driven insane by the very people he was observing, had been killed in the hydroponics lab less than three weeks ago.

Book turned off the datapad and rose. He turned and hurried out of the room, looking for Mal. He had to tell him, even if it meant . . . if it meant telling him about the data needle.

The Captain was two cars down, past the one where most of the civilians were staying in. Mal looked distracted, but was walking with a purpose, and as soon as he saw Book approaching, he started toward the preacher with intent.

"Captain," Book said, lowering his voice as he approached. "I-"

"Preacher, I just realized something," Mal interrupted. "About those labs. Something stupid as hell that I didn't think of before."

"Yes, exactly," Book said, nodding. "I found-"

"The villagers are lying," Mal whispered, and looked over his shoulder. Book froze in mid-sentence.

"What?" the priest asked.

"When we first got here," Mal whispered, checking for eavesdroppers again. "Pherson said the mercs hit the Blue Sun labs after they hit the village."

Book's mind whirled, and he remembered what they saw.

"They didn't," the preacher replied, heart suddenly pounding. "Those bodies had been dead for weeks."

"Pherson's lying," Mal said. "I didn't think of it before until I started adding the facts up. Dumb as hell of me. They know something. They know who killed those workers, probably who killed your preacher buddy too. I'm gonna go ask him, get to the bottom of this _gose_." Mal turned to leave, brutality in his eyes and gait.

"Captain," Book said, grabbing Mal's shoulder. Mal came to a halt and glanced back.

"There's something else going on here," he said.

"What do you mean?" Mal asked. "Shepherd, these folks may have murdered them-"

"I know," Book replied. "And I may know why."

He held up the data needle.

"What's that?" Mal asked.

* * *

The mercenary woke all the way up when Jayne poured his canteen over the man's face. He jerked, shaking his head and tossing water every which way. His eyes flicked around the train car, and he shook, arms and legs moving. The man was smart, Jayne noted; he didn't ask stupid questions or struggle anymore than he needed to understand where he was and what was happening.

He was skinny, but not the starved kind. Muscular but not thick. He had thin, handsome features and short-cut blond hair, with dark brown eyes, which gleamed with fear – tightly controlled, but it was there.

"Mornin'," Jayne said. He glanced up at the other side of the cargo car. River was behind the mercenary, leaning against some crates, but utterly silent. That was the plan; she'd keep an eye on the merc's brain and give him indicators of what he was feeling while Jayne put the screws to him.

"Hi," the merc said, in response, tone a bit dry. His voice was accented; back on Earth-That-Was, it might have been vaguely Spanish.

"You're not dumb, I'm hopin,'" Jayne said.

Binky slid out of its sheath on his hip and twirled in his hand. It came to a stop with its tip pointed at the little merc's throat.

"So you can guess how this is gonna happen," Jayne finished, raising his eyebrows and grinning. The mercenary nodded slowly.

"What do you want to know?" he asked, sitting up as best he could. Behind him, River frowned and nodded, signaling he was being honest.

"That was quick," Jayne said, and pouted a bit.

"I'm not being paid to be silent," the merc replied. "My name is Zev. Zev Nai. I don't know much, but if it keeps you from cutting me, I'll talk."

"Ain't got half a spine at all," Jayne grumbled, injecting plenty of disappointment into his voice.

"Nothing in my contract says I'm not to talk if captured," the merc said, shrugging.

"I wanted an ear, too," Jayne added. "Okay. Fine. First off, how many of you are there?"

"Total on Victoria?" the merc asked. "Seven hundred men. My company is one hundred-eighty total."

Jayne did his best to hide his dismay. Nearly a hundred and fifty mercs still alive? Holy damn.

"Where?" he asked.

"Twenty kilometers from the village, northwest. Salt Plains. Good staging ground, not a lot of insects. Sunny, though. Hell in this armor."

"Weapons?"

"Small arms, mostly," Zev said. "Mmm . . . About a dozen transports. Two troop lifters, Reefers I think, carry about thirty men each. Three AA-61 Widow gunships for support."

Jayne found it harder to hide his worry. Jesus, they had gunships? He remembered the last time they'd tangled with one; his best rifle's ammunition had barely scratched the paintwork. These bastards had three?

"Alright, then," Jayne said, shaking off the anxiety. He hid it in a shoulder rolling motion that could easily be figured as eagerness. "Now the big one. What are ya'll after?"

Zev frowned, then nodded, and River suddenly jerked.

"We want the children," he said. "We're securing the children. Not precisely sure why-"

River gasped, and the merc froze. He turned in place, and looked over his shoulder at the girl standing behind him, who he hadn't even realized was there.

Zev's eyes widened, and he froze in place, meeting River's eyes. A long moment passed, and Jayne found himself standing, a bit of worry writhing in his guts. He stepped around beside the merc, and was about to say something, when he saw Zev's eyes again as he stared at River.

The mercenary leaned away from her, and he saw sweat forming on Zev's brow. Fear flickered through his eyes again, along with something else: _recognition_.

The mercenary recognized River.

The wheels whirled in Jayne's mind, and he looked up at the girl. River's eyes snapped toward his, and the stammered for a moment, surprise and worry and confusion arcing through her face.

"H-h-he knows," she whispered. "He knows me. He _knows_ me." She stepped backward, shivering and shaking her head.

"Not you," the merc said. "They just briefed us, mentioned you in passing. They didn't think we'd . . . we'd find . . . ."

"Hold on," Jayne said, reaching out and grabbing River's shoulder. The girl started to steady, but was still shaking her head in confusion. "_Xiao gui_, keep it steady. What did he know?"

"She can kill us all," Zev said, drawing Jayne's eyes back toward him. Terror was in his eyes. "They told us about her. Psychopathic killer. I didn't think she'd-"

"Who told you?" Jayne demanded.

"The guys who hired us," Zev said. "I don't remember much about them. They wore suits, they contacted us through the Cortex, sent us out here to collect the children from this village. We were the only ones they could find who had a legitimate reason to be out here and weren't Alliance military."

The wheels kept turning in Jayne's head, and he turned back to River. She was starting to steady herself again, the shock wearing off. She looked up, and met his eyes, and he understood.

"Get Mal," she said, understanding. "We need to tell Mal!"

Jayne nodded, and stepped around Zev, River following. He took a sharp breath, getting ready to yell his "Cap'n-we're-all-gonna-die" warning yell.

The train shook, the lights went dark, and light and fire and ripping metal slashed across through the car. Jayne dropped to the floor, and smelled blood, and someone slumped to the floor beside him. Harsh light shone through a hundred bullet holes riddling the car.

River shrieked in pain, and then noise filled the car again as more bullets tore through the walls.

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** Yeah, this chapter took a while to do. Dialogue is still a challenge for me.

We're heading into the closing stretch for this arc. Only a couple of chapters left . . . .

Until next chapter . . . .


	56. Chapter Seven: Crazy Train

**_Author's Notes: _**Long chapter warning. Also, lots of _Ri**verth**_**ink**!

**File Reconstruction 89% Complete**

**Project Cerberus: Cerebral - Enhancement Recursion Syst&m**

**Psychol&ical Pro3ile**

**Test Sub5ect- Induc#r 000-119 - Wade, 4athryn**

* * *

_**Chapter Seven: Crazy Train**_

"Short bursts!" Commander Bascjo barked over the radio. "I want them suppressed, not dead. And have the pilots keep their distance. Don't want to risk ground fire on the Widows' engines."

Of course, spraying chaingun fire from a pair of gunships onto the train would likely kill somebody, but he wasn't exceptionally bothered if they accidentally killed their target. As long as they had a recognizable body, they were fine for the parameters of the contract.

_"Sir," _called his pilot over the AA-61 Widow gunship's intercom. Bascjo, sitting behind him, glanced up. _"Should we shoot up the engine car?"_

"No," Bascjo yelled back over the roar of the gunship's engine. "Knock that thing out and we'll disable the maglev lines." He didn't need to say anything else; if the maglev lines were cut, the whole train would go tumbling into the canyons below. That would ruin any chance of easily finding the target's body and identifying it.

Like as not, Bascjo knew, they were going to have to board the train, but that was why he brought the Reefer transport aircraft with him. He glanced at the radar display, and saw the bulky transports flying behind them, each loaded with twenty assault troops. He would have preferred more, but that was the number of men he had who were experienced at this kind of assault.

The canyons below were typical for this area of the planet; brown-gray rock canyons a couple of kilometers deep, criss-crossing over half the continent. Bascjo heard that the geologists figured the moon had water on it millions of years ago, and that had etched out the canyons.

"Keep them suppressed," Bascjo ordered. "Assault teams, prepare to rappel in five. If you spot the target, try to take it alive. Otherwise, I'll understand."

* * *

One minute, Mal had been asking what the funny looking data crystal the Shepherd was holding was for. The next, the inside of the passenger car became a torrent of screaming and chaos. Mal hit the floor, along with nearly everyone else, and the moment the gunfire passed over the car, he rose to his feet, assault rifle in hand.

"Everyone, stay down!" he barked, his voice one of pure military authority. Mal could smell blood, and hear cries of pain from somewhere in passenger car. He glanced around, and saw Simon rising with his medical kit in hand. Mal nodded to the doctor, and started moving across the car. His mind whirled as he tried to assess what was happening and respond to it, and he was dimly aware of Book following him, holding a weapon of his own.

They were being shot at by heavy weapons from the exterior of the train. That meant gunships. But if they had gunships, that meant they had enough firepower to destroy the train outright, yet they hadn't. That meant they wanted the train intact.

That meant boarders and assault teams.

Mal glanced to Book, and the old Shepherd nodded. They'd reached the same conclusion.

"They're gonna come in," he said, and Book nodded. Mal grabbed his radio, making sure his earpiece was in. Mal dialed up _Serenity's_ frequency as he moved toward one of the windows. "Wash!"

"_Yeah, Mal?"_

"We got a bad case of being shot at," Mal said. "Whole mess of ugly in the air around us. Get her warmed up."

"_On it," _Wash replied. _"You know we don't have any guns, right? I'm not going to be much use if they've got guns."_

"_Serenity's _big and tough," Mal replied. "Worse comes to worst, smash 'em."

"_Right," _Wash replied. _"I think you just called the ship fat, Mal."_

"It's my ship, I'll call it whatever," the captain replied, peeking out the window. He saw a bulky gray-brown painted transport craft overhead, and a slender, darker-painted aircraft that resembled a wasp or preying mantis in its general shape. The wasp-like vessel pivoted toward the cars again, and fired a burst from a chin-mounted cannon, ripping into the train a few cars back, where there was only cargo.

"Okay, Shepherd," Mal said to Book. "Time to negotiate."

* * *

The smell of blood was nothing new for Jayne, but River's cry of pain was a hell of a lot more unsettling. The moment the wave of gunfire ended, he rose into a crouch beside her, and looked down at the girl. She sat up, blood running down her leg, and hissed in pain.

"Shrapnel," he grunted, seeing a few shards of metal lodged in her leg. She hadn't been hit with bullets, at least. Jayne went for the medical kit they'd stowed in the room in case they'd had to get rougher than expected on the merc. As he grabbed it, he glanced at the mercenary, but Zev had fallen over in the storm of gunfire; Jayne couldn't tell if he was hit or just knocked himself out falling down, but he didn't care. He passed the kit over to River, and then went for Vera and the rest of the guns they'd stowed, on the far side of the car.

He returned with the weapons, to see River gritting her teeth as she tugged at the shrapnel.

"_Gorram_ it, girl," He growled, crouching beside her. More gunfire sounded overhead. "Don't know the first damn thing about first aid."

She glared up at him, face twisted in petulance, while Jayne took out a vial of painkiller and some biofoam.

"Missed the arteries," she said. "I can stand and fight. Metal must go away."

"I gotcha," Jayne replied, working fast. He grunted at her as he did so. Some people – villagers, he guessed - ran past him as he worked, but he was too focused on River to pay attention.

"How many of 'em?" he asked, handing the girl her own pistol and sword with his other hand. River's eyes unfocused for a moment, and snapped back.

"Six - seven, plus twenty and twenty, plus two and two," she murmured. "Don't want to drive the crazy train off the rails. Forty with mind on danger, seven and four with eyes on displays and controls."

"So . . . forty assault troops, plus eleven pilots?" he asked, readying the biofoam injector. River nodded, still focusing on what was happening outside.

"Three gunships, two transports," she added, and hissed a bit in pain. "I think-"

Jayne pulled the shrapnel out with a single swift tug, and she jerked, screaming in sudden agony. He held down her leg with his other hand and immediately injected the biofoam into the wound before it could bleed any further. Girl was damned lucky it hadn't nicked an artery, or she'd be keeping that shrapnel in there until her brother could deal with it.

As he finished, her cry of pain devolved into some very drawn-out, creative swearing in Mandarin and a couple of other languages he didn't recognize. He caught a bit of angry Arabic he recognized involving scorpions and his genitalia, though. Jayne quickly tied off the wound with bandages around her leg to seal in the biofoam and keep it from bleeding.

Once she quieted down, Jayne flicked on his radio.

"Mal," he called.

"_Jayne," _the Captain replied. _"You okay?"_

"Girl's hit, but ain't bad," he replied. "We're in the cargo car. Zoë's past us, rear passenger car. Girl said we got about forty shooters in two transports, plus three gunships."

Mal swore violently, and Jayne _hmphed_ his agreement.

"_Okay, you two hold that car, keep 'em there," _Mal ordered. _"Let's try to shoot 'em before they rappel down. You got that grenade launcher?"_

"Loaded and ready," Jayne replied, and grinned.

"_Get up top, introduce our friends to Vera."_

"On it, Cap'n," Jayne replied, and he hooked an arm under River's. "Hell, girl," he growled, standing her onto her feet, where she wavered unsteadily. "Both been hurt worse than that."

She looked up at him, a flash of painful memories running through her eyes. He stared back, and instead of dwelling on the hell they'd survived, he remembered her after the fight with the Reavers, them killing Ott's goons, and her expression while preparing to kill the other Talons in the abbey. The pain vanished, and a few moments later was replaced by steel and determination and a bit of anger at him for manipulating her emotions like that.

"Ain't got time to bellyache, _xiao gui_," he grumbled, hefting Vera. There was no apology in his tone.

She held up her sword, and he nodded, speaking the words. The sword clicked open, and she drew the electrified blade free, before putting the scabbard on her sash.

"Where they coming in at?" Jayne asked. He heard another burst of gunfire outside.

"First passenger car," she replied. "And . . . ."

She snapped a hand up, grabbing the front of his shirt, and tugged him down toward the deck.

"Ears and eyes!" she yelled, and Jayne knew the warning. They both hit the deck, and Jayne covered his ears and squeezed his eyes tight.

The windows of the cargo car, shuttered and closed, were smashed in, followed a moment later by tumbling flashbangs.

* * *

Zoë started back toward the front of the train the moment she heard the gunfire. Everything beyond the cargo car where River and Jayne had been was mostly empty passenger cars or cargo holds, also largely empty. Only first four of the twenty-odd compartments on the train were occupied. That wasn't going to deflect the enemy, though; they likely had scanners that could pick out the passengers.

She started toward the third car, where Jayne and River were in, when the doors swung open, and several terrified villagers ran into the room.

"Hold!" he barked at them, voice ringing with pure authority, and they came to a halt. "Get down, stay down!" she added and they started for cover. She could see terror intermixed on their faces, and then the room exploded with gunfire.

Zoë hit the deck as bullets ripped past overhead, sending splinters and shrapnel flying through the room. The survivors screamed and huddled low to the floor, and a moment later the gunfire passed.

"Everyone okay?" she asked, rising. There were sounds of affirmation, and Zoë put a hand to her earpiece. "Sir?"

"_Zoë," _Mal replied. There were a couple of gunshots over the radio. _"Where are you?"_

"Fourth car back, got some strays," she replied.

"_They're rappelling down on the first and third cars. You might be safest back there."_

"Understood," she replied, looking down at the villagers. "But I'm gonna move up. Maybe I can get a shot at them from the rooftop."

"_Okay," _Mal said, and there was another gunshot. "_Don't know much on how to defend a train, always robbed them._" He paused, and she heard a door open. _"Wash is on the way, I figure we got fifteen minutes before we're under Alliance no-fly zones."_

"Roger that," Zoë replied. Wash would be flying low, she knew; she could count on him to skip a no-fly zone if he put his flying magic to work. She double-checked her shotgun, and as she did so, she looked down to the people lying on the floor.

"Anyone have a weapon?" One of the men nodded, and rose, holding a shotgun. "Joshua, right?" He nodded. "Watch these folks. Get them further back on the train. We can't go back forward."

The young man nodded, and the others started to stand. She agreed with Mal's assessment; the rear of the train would be safer, for now. They started for the rear of the train, keeping low, terror still evident on their features, but at least now they had a purpose and direction. Zoë knew that well, having seen it in terrified young soldiers simply looking for orders.

She moved toward the windows to get a better look outside, when she heard movement close by, and looked down, so see a little black-haired bundle of child, huddled beneath one of the passenger seats.

"Katie?" Zoë asked, crouching beside her, and the girl looked up. Fear was evident on her face, but controlled better than Zoë would have expected for a child. But then, the girl seemed to be made of sterner stuff than most, and had already been badly traumatized. Zoë knelt beside her.

"Katie," she repeated, and the girl looked up. She caught something in the girl's gaze, that reminded her of River in her worst moments, and touched the child's shoulder. "Katie, I need you to go with the others, okay?"

The little girl shook her head.

"No. You're safer."

Zoë smiled at her and nodded.

"Won't be safe to be around me much longer, little one," she said. "The others can watch over you. Go with them, okay?"

Katie shuddered, but then nodded, and started to stand. Zoë was hit by an overwhelming urge to follow with the girl, to keep her safe, but she had a job to do.

Gunfire sounded through the car's walls, and she thought she heard the pounding of footsteps overhead. A heartbeat later, Zoë heard the detonation of flashbangs, and the roar of gunfire.

"Go," Zoë ordered. "Go, now!"

* * *

"Kaylee, spin her up!" Wash yelled over the intercom.

_"What's happening?" _she asked, her voice coming from the engine room's loudspeaker.

"The usual. Bullets, gunplay, death, Mal yelling," Wash replied, flicking switches and turning dials with a passion. "They need us in the air, said something about the badguys with gunships."

"Chu wa," Kaylee replied. _"Uh, Wash?"_

'"Yeah?" he replied, making sure the drive discharge capacitor was working. They weren't going to have a repeat of the scissors incident again.

_"They got gunships, but we don't have guns," _she called, over the whirly hiss-roar of the engines powering up. _"Cap'n's got a plan, right?"_

"Uh," Wash replied, remembering the best of Mal's plans had always ended in running gunbattles and flying harpoons.

_"Yeah," _Kaylee replied to Wash's vocal uncertainty. He worked quickly to power up the ship, with took only a few more seconds, and all the while thought as fast as he could, trying to come up with a plan. Nothing came to him for a minute, and then Kaylee's voice sounded again.

_"She's spinnin' proper," _the mechanic called.

"Okay, we're getting airborne," Wash said, punching in and sending out his flight plan to the local air traffic controller. The automated approval came back, and _Serenity_ started to lift. He ran navigational calculations in his head, wishing River was here to handle that part while he focused on flying.

_"Wash!" _Kaylee suddenly yelled, voice excited. he jumped a little in his seat, not expecting her voice or the high pitch of her tone.

"What? What blew up?" he asked, terribly afraid his ship was exploding at an inconvenient time. "Did something blow up again?"

_"Nothing blew up," _Kaylee replied quickly. _"I got an idea!"_

"Uh, for the gunships?" Wash asked, and he heard her nod.

_"Yeah," _she replied_. "Monty!"_

"Monty?" Wash echoed and then a sudden spike of understand flew through him, along with a bit of giddy hope. "Yeah, Monty!" His hands flew over the console, dialing in Monty's Cortex frequency. "Monty's got almost as many guns as Jayne."

"_Monty'll be out there before you can spit," _Kaylee agreed. _"Just hope he's fast enough for Mal."_

_Yeah,_ Wash agreed silently. _Wouldn't want to be Mal right now._

* * *

A bullet slammed into Mal's shoulder, jerking him around and sending a spray of blood through the air. He yelped in shock and snapped up his sidearm, firing over the top of the train and hitting one of the black-armored mercenaries in the leg. The man toppled sideways, almost falling off the train's rooftop before one of his compatriots grabbed him and pulled him back.

Mal had been on the ladder between the first and second passenger cars, firing over the lip of the rooftop. He now fell back, blood pouring down his arm and chest, cursing and snarling. Bullets smashed and deflected off the metal all around him, forcing him down into cover. A round deflected off the steel and parted his hair, but thankfully not his skull. He'd gotten two of the Talons as they'd come down. Only two men, but that was better than none, and it was two less than he'd been facing before.

That was what he liked to call optimism.

Book was on the opposite side, between the first and second passenger cars. He rose up on the ladder and fired two quick shots at one of the mercenaries as the man hit the rooftop. The first round punched through his rifle's trigger group, smashing and ruining the weapon. The second hit the Talon trooper's gun hand, pulverizing the delicate bones. The mercenary yelped and dropped his ruined weapon, cradling his hand. An eyeblink later, the other three mercenaries on the rooftop whirled to fire at the Shepherd, along with the two men providing cover from overhead. He dropped back down between the train cars as bullets tore into the metal, punching through wood and steel.

The plan had been to catch the enemy as they rappelled down from the overhead transports that were trying to keep above the train cars. Book and Mal would sandwich the boarders in a cross-fire as they landed one by one. The problem was that the enemy expected that, and they had troops still in the transport bays firing down at them. So Mal improvised.

Jayne had brought grenades.

The explosives Jayne preferred didn't have the old-style pull-pins that Zoë liked. These were concussion grenades, and they had twist pins on the top, similar in shape and design to the incendiaries Mal and Jayne had used on Mr. Universe's moon. Unlike the incendiaries, these grenades used raw concussive force instead of explosives, fire, and shrapnel. They wouldn't blow off the roof of the train and kill everyone inside.

Everyone _on top _was a different matter.

The grenade elicited the usual shouts of warning and panic as Mal heaved it over the top of the train. There was no cover up on the top, and thus the eight mercenaries who had taken the rooftop had nowhere to run when the grenade blew. There was an intensely powerful rush of air and noise, and Mal's ears rang for a few seconds. He saw a shape topple off the side of the train car, and faintly heard a scream that was rapidly lost amidst the roar of engines and wind.

Well, two were now ten, Mal thought, part of him satisfied and part of him disgusted at said satisfaction.

On the other side of the car, Book had a better view of the carnage. The concussion grenade didn't kill anyone by itself; rather, the force of the detonation stunned and rattled the men on the train's roof, causing nose- and ear-bleeding and inflicting waves of dizziness, nausea, and in some cases unconsciousness. That was good for assaulting a room, as it stunned the occupants and left them easy to capture or take down.

On the roof of a fast-moving train, it was a death sentence. Men fell back from the force of the detonation, and coupled with the high wind and the shifting of the train cars as it drove, they were either knocked off the roof or fell to the metal before sliding or rolling off the edge. Book winced as he saw it happen, and then had to go for cover again as the mercenaries overhead opened fire again. He pressed his back to the metal, feeling the vibrating rattle of the hover-train as it screamed along the tracks.

Their only advantage now was the odd angle the transport's shooters had to fire at. They were shooting out the side doors at targets directly below the fat-bottomed aircraft, which meant they had to lean out the side of the transport to shoot underneath it – an odd angle that buffeted the mercenaries with fast winds.

Bullets continued to pound around Book's potion as the mercenaries kept up the fire, keeping the two men suppressed. They couldn't get a good shot at either the Shepherd or Mal, but they made up for it with intensive suppressive fire, and it would only take one bullet to put either of them down.

The Shepherd caught a bit of motion out the corner of his eye.

"_Shepherd," _Mal called over the radio. _"We've got 'em pin-"_

"Get inside, Captain!" Book yelled, right as the Widow gunship opened fire. He dove inside the passenger car as rounds screamed through the metal and wood where he'd been standing. As he entered the car, he heard cries of fear and terror from the other passengers, hunkered on the floor. The burst of gunfire ended a few moments later.

On the opposite end of the car, Mal stumbled in, blood running freely down his shirt.

"This ain't good, Preacher," he gasped, still standing despite the crimson pouring down his chest. They could hear boots hitting the rooftop overhead.

"Can't be more than five or six," Book said, and Mal nodded, wincing in pain as he did so. He hefted his sidearm. Across the car, Book saw Elder Pherson. He nodded, the village elder hefting a shotgun.

"They'll come in soon," the elder said. His voice rose into an order "Everyone who ain't armed, stay down, we need to-"

Flashbangs fell into the room through the smashed windows.

* * *

The flashbangs blew inside the cargo car, filling the confined space with light and noise and pain.

A heartbeat later, four Talon mercenaries were rappelling down into the broken windows, weapons in hand. It was like something out of a pulp action vid, four black-armored men leaping through the windows, weapons rising to the ready position as their boots hit the deck.

They met three hundred pounds of enormous, angry mercenary and ninety pounds of thin, semi-sane government assassin. Noise, blood, flashing gunfire, and the stench of burnt flesh and ozone filled the tight confines.

River and Jayne had taken cover as the flashbangs blew, diving behind the crates to shield themselves from the light and the main strength of the noise. As soon as the weapons had detonated, they'd emerged from cover, right into the pair of mercenaries entering the car from the "front" windows. There wasn't time for finesse; Vera punched three armor-piercing rounds through the first mercenary as he hit the floor, pitching him backward against the wall with an expression of shock and fear on his face.

The second had barely hit the floor when Laertes slashed up into his arm, between the shoulder and upper arm plates, and sent a blast of electricity into his body. The man howled at the contact, his shoulders slamming into the wall as he jerked away from the blade, and River's blade flashed up into his chest, sinking in between the torso plates. The cry of pain tripled over as electricity pumped through the man's body.

Both River and Jayne spun at the same time as the other two mercenaries landed, and fired their weapons. River's small automatic cracked while Vera thundered, and both of the other mercenaries at the far end of the car went down. Jayne's opponent let out a gasp of dying pain as he fell, while River's simply crumpled as her rounds went through his temple. A second later, the mercenary she'd run through stopped screaming, and the scent of burnt flesh filled the car, crowding out the cordite from their guns.

More windows blew in as the first four men went down, and mercenaries rappelled down into the train car. River and Jayne pivoted, firing their weapons at opposite ends of the train car, over each other's shoulders. She winced at the noise of Vera as the heavy weapon blew a man back out the window he'd come in. Behind Jayne, River's double-tap hit the mercenary coming at his back in the knee and then higher, in the throat.

More men closed in from either side, the confines tight and noisy and violent, and neither River nor Jayne had any time to speak or communicate. In a way, they didn't need to. She ducked low under his arm, brass casings from Vera's bullets dropping around her as he fired over her head. Her pistol barked again, putting two more rounds into another mercenary, and then she was stepping behind him, shielded by his broad back.

They stood back to-back, firing their weapons as the enemy poured in, all black armor and noise and raining brass and blood and crackling lightning.

Somewhere, in all the noise and chaos, she thought she could hear his heartbeat.

* * *

The violence had skipped over the car where Zoë was standing in; either the enemy was ignoring her small group or they simply hadn't noticed them. All of the fire was focused toward the front of the train, and as she slipped outside, wind buffeting her hair, she could see the situation much more clearly.

The two transports were flying over the forward cars, troops rappelling down onto the first passenger car and the cargo car where River and Jayne had been. She could see troops on the first car, along with a couple of corpses, but she knew Mal and Book had probably put up a hell of a defense; she counted only a half-dozen men at the front of the train. To the rear, she saw more, a dozen at least, rappelling down into the cargo car, and suppressed the worry rising up in her gut. She wasn't sure if even Jayne and River could handle that many men in close quarters.

Then one of the mercenaries went tumbling out the window, accompanied by gunfire that Zoë immediately recognized as coming from Vera.

Okay, maybe she should revise that assessment.

The enemy soldiers hadn't noticed her yet. One of them, what looked like an officer by the way he was yelling and pointing, was directing his men to keep moving down through the windows, and sent two pairs of mercenaries to either end of the car, probably trying to flank.

Zoë raised her lever-action to her shoulder and fired a single shot, hitting the officer in the jaw and sending his head snapping backward. He tumbled off the side of the train, and the men froze in place for a heartbeat.

The lever pumped, a fresh shell slid into place, and she shot another Talon, catching this one in the gut.

Many of the mercenaries were in the car by now, but there were four of them still on the rooftop, and they started returning fire frantically. She fired one more shot, felling another, dropped back down behind the cover of the car as their weapons rose. She ducked back inside the car.

Footsteps sounded on the roof of the train, and she pointed her weapon up, listening intently. She heard one man passing overhead, guessed at how fast he was moving, and fired a shot through the roof. A moment later, a howl of pain and the impact of a falling body rewarded her shooting.

She still heard footsteps on the roof, and guessed maybe one or two more mercenaries were up, there, along with the one she'd shot. She listened, hearing more steps overhead, then a moment of relative silence.

Zoë understood the pause, and dashed forward, right as the two mercenaries started firing through the roof. Bullets punched through the wood and steel rooftop, tearing apart chairs and flooring, and shredded the rough area where she'd shot from.

But now she knew where they were standing.

Zoë's gun roared once, and then a second time, and both shots accompanied cries of pain or falling bodies, and then there was silence.

* * *

_Noise._

A gun went off right by her ear – another gun – _working parts _hurling _metal at her and past her_.

_thump_

Laertes danced inside the mercenary's stomach as she slid beside him. He didn't scream, _**but he screamed anyway**_, lighting flashing through and flash-frying and flash-forwarding and

_thump_

**He** loomed up behind her, a _mountain of _**_muscle and _bone **and _bullets_. _Weapon roaring _and_ spewing insults _**_and snarls and steel and _**_lead and brass_.

_thump_

She stepped back, twisting and tearing _**the lightning **_free of the dead man, the steel in her hand rising and barking as she found a target. _**Shapes **__and thoughts _**and**_** memories **__danced and __**silenced **__around her_. Boots hit the deck, _wood and steel twisted and bent_

_thump_

She killed.

_thump_

**He** killed.

_thump_

They did it well.

_thump_

_Shoot._ Duck. Slice.

_thump_

Fire. Reload. Drop.

_thump_

**Adjust. **Turn**. Fire**.

_thump_

Draw. _Shoot. __**Drop**_.

_thump_

Her ears were _screaming_ in pain. Agony _rolled up _her leg. Cuts and scrapes and hot blood covered her. A tiny part of her was terrified, _overridden _by the killing programming.

_thump_

She didn't care.

_thump_

He had his back to her. He was covering her. She was covering him.

_thump_

Laertes ran through a man's chest, snaking inside his torso armor and boiling his heart with lightning.

_thump_

It was weird.

_thump_

It was . . . _familiar_. She'd done this before, but not with **him**.

_thump_

She could still feel _**his**_ heartbeat, either way.

* * *

Simon was still working on the last of the most serious injuries when he heard the thump of flashbangs and more gunfire. He looked up, and saw shapes outside the car. The villagers cried out as the door was shoved open.

A mercenary came in through the door, clad in black armor and with an enormous weapon in hand. Simon spun toward him, raising the submachinegun he was carrying. The mercenary pivoted slightly, weapon tracking toward Simon.

The doctor had a horrible realization that he wouldn't get his gun up fast enough.

There was a hiss of disturbed air, and the mercenary jerked back as Inara put a meter-long shaft of solid metal through the soldier's torso. The mercenary was pushed backward by the force of the arrow, and he bumped into the wall behind him. Pain and fear fell over the Talon's features, and he started to raise his weapon in spite of the bolt lodged in his chest.

Inara stepped past Simon, another arrow loaded in the torque bow, the same cold calmness he'd seen before on her features. She fired the bolt, burying it in the mercenary's chest again, and this time he was shoved backward against the wall, the bolt lodging in the wood. The soldier's features flickered with more agony and shock, before slackening and fading into death.

Simon stared at the dead man for a moment, weapon still in hand, and then Inara was crouching beside him.

"Simon?" she asked. The calm control she'd showed a moment ago faded into obvious worry, and the adrenaline of the sudden brush with death was still pumping through him.

"I'm . . . I'm okay, Inara," he replied, nodding and standing. "He startled me, is all."

She nodded, and started to stand. He rose with her.

"Thank y-"

The door flew open again, and another black-armored figure entered. Both Inara and Simon raise their weapons, but held there fire.

The mercenary wasn't charging – he was being hurled backward. The man grappling with him pushed the soldier into one of the prone villagers, and both of them tumbled over to the floor.

It was Elder Pherson, and he was wrestling with the mercenary in a furious rage. The soldier smashed his fist into the village elder's nose, and shoved him up off him. Pherson roared in anger-

- and then several villagers in the car close by rose up and dogpiled the mercenary, punching and beating and yelling as they fell upon him.

Simon and Inara could only stare in shock for a moment at the sudden shift, and then Pherson was standing, spinning back toward the door he'd emerged from. He had a handgun in his fingers, probably taken from the mercenary, and he howled with rage that reminded Simon uncomfortably of a Reaver.

The handgun fired two shots. There was an answer rattle of fire, and the elder toppled backward, blood flying from one of his legs. The villagers around him fell backward , yelling in surprise and terror just as fast as they'd responded in fury.

As Pherson fell, another mercenary advanced, weapon up and ready to fire.

This time, Simon brought his submachinegun up, and he wasn't too slow. He pulled the trigger, just as Jayne had showed him a few days ago, and the weapon thundered in his hands, sending a long burst of bullets into the mercenary. The man flinched and then stumbled to the side as the rounds hammered him, and then Inara sent another torque arrow into the man's gut. The impact spun him around and sent the black-armored man to the floor. He thrashed or a couple of seconds before going still.

Simon stared at the corpse for only a moment, fighting back the sudden wave of disgust he felt at himself, and then ran to Pherson's side, medical kit in hand.

* * *

_His name is Kyle Galloway. He is a sergeant, trained in close combat. He doesn't understand how everything went so wrong, how such a small person managed to get so close, why there's a sword in his stomach and pain was flying up his body and why is-_

The last man slid off her blade, and his thoughts went _mercifully silent_.

Silence.

Blood poured down her weapons. Her lungs burned, savagely pulling in air, _hungering_ for it. Her eyes ached, her muscles _cried_, her wounded leg was throbbing, a dozen scratches and cuts and gashes stung from sweat, and she trembled with muscle fatigue.

All of that was irrelevant.

_**He**_ was behind her.

**His** shoulder blades brushed the top of her back**. His **sweat filled the air. Her thigh touched the back of _his_, and she could _feel_ the heart, the surge of exultation at victory, the satisfaction, the endomorphin-fueled highs. _He_ won, and the animal part of **him** wanted to howl with victory.

She wanted to howl right with him.

Bodies lay piled around them, a massacre, just like

_-exercise complete. Two dozen combat-trained personnel lay unconscious, and he was behind her. She heard nothing from him except his breathing, his heart pounding , his back to hers, shivering against hers-_

"_Gorram_ it," **he **whispered, voice deep and gruff and hungry yet satisfied and joyful.

_"We won," he whispered. _

"Good fight," she said, to both **him** and to _him_.

"Yeah," _**he**_ replied. "Damn. Didn't think . . ." **he** started to turn, and his shoulder pressed against hers.

_"We won," he said, turning. "You and me." His shoulder pressed against hers._

The heat poured through her, the giddy endomorphin high, heart pounding away like a machinegun. She felt _**him**_, the warmth, blood-flushed heat rolling off _**his**_ body as he turned toward her.

_**want**_

She _was_ in the train, wasn't she? Yes, she was. But then, why was _she back there, in the training room?_

**Jayne** was behind her. But was he _John?_

Her heart kept pounding, and showed no signs of slowing down. The heat of combat, of motion and violence and exertion, was still there, but grew stronger.

"Girl?" Jayne asked. "_Xiao gui_? You okay?"

_"They didn't hurt you, did they?" John asked._

"No," she answered them both, not sure which was real and which was memory. "They didn't touch me."

_**need**_

She looked up at _**him**_, the warmth rolling off _**him**_, blood pouring down-

_She was strapped in the rack, electricity shooting through her, screaming_

_She was strapped in the chair, toxins pouring into her brain, screaming_

"Girl!" **Jayne** yelled as she screamed at the memory, and _**he**_ grabbed her arms.

_"River!" John yelled as she screamed at the agony in her brain, and **he** grabbed her_.

She collapsed into _**their**_ arms, sobbing, memories rising up, _pain_ and _**death**_ flashing, _emotions and _memories_ dying and ending_.

"J . . .Ja . . Jo . . ." she tried to speak, falling down into the madness, again.

"Its _okay_, _I'm_ here!" _**they**_ both said, and _**they**_ both wrapped her up and held her tight, and she felt _**their**_ hearts beating against hers.

_**Close. Warm. Safe.**_

"Dammit, _xiao gui_, get a hold of yerself," **he** hissed.

_"Its okay, River, you're okay," he hissed._

"I've got you," _**they**_ both said.

She _was in her room_, and _**they**_ held her as the _pain __flared and faded_, and she stopped crying. She was clutching _**them**_ back, strong arms around her. She was pulling on _**them**_ both, and then pushing up out of _**their**_ _grips_.

_need_. **want.** hunger. _**basic emotions**_.

She didn't know who it was that was holding her. It didn't matter. All she cared about was that mutual _thump-thump_. The heartbeat drew her in, intensified the heat, and made her

_feel wanted. feel needed. **feel** . . . ._

River pulled herself up, pulled _**their**_ mouth into hers, and refused to let go.

* * *

It was chaos.

That was proving to be the default situation, today.

The remaining mercenaries had charged down into the train car after the flashbangs blew, but that detonation triggered and blind, deaf panic in the surviving villagers, some of whom were screaming and stumbling around. Mal and Book and shielded themselves from the blasts, and had recovered in time to meet the five mercenaries who had stormed into the car.

Gunfire sounded in close, mixed with screams and blood, and Mal saw Pherson intercept one of the mercenaries, shoving the man to the rear of the car. Another mercenary went down when one of the villagers fired a shotgun into his face at point-blank range.

A third loomed up before Mal, and the captain fired a snap shot into the soldier with his sidearm. The round smashed off the mercenary's armor, and he was swinging his weapon around when Mal slammed into him, tackling them both to the floor before he could fire the gun in close quarters and kill a dozen folk.

The captain shoved the mercenary's weapon down and aside, pinning it with one arm, and he tried beating the soldier with the butt of his gun. The pistol descended and smacked off the Talon's forearm armor, and the merc punched Mal in the jaw, knocking his head back. Mal shifted his weight, pinning the rifle beneath his leg, and his left hand shot up and around the Talon's neck. He started to squeeze, and tried to bring his pistol back down. The mercenary caught Mal's pistol hand and held it back and up, thrashing and trying to get out from under the captain.

Mal kept choking the man, snarling and fighting. The mercenary's free arm flailed, and pain lanced up through Mal's chest and shoulder suddenly. He gasped, gritting his teeth, and saw the mercenary had buried his fingers in the gunshot wound on Mal's upper right chest.

Mal squeezed harder. He saw terror beginning to work into the man's expression, and then pulled his arm away from Mal's wound. His bloody fingers scrabbled over his armor's pouches.

The Talon produced a grenade.

"_Hun dan!"_ Mal yelled, leaping backward as the mercenary fiddled with the grenade. The moment he fell off of the prone soldier, the man dropped the grenade and went for his weapon. He raised the assault rifle as Mal snapped his pistol up.

They both fired.

Mal hit the merc in the nose. The merc's shots hit the ceiling, blowing a half-dozen holes in the rooftop.

Mal didn't have time to reflect on another near-death experience. He shot to his feet, and saw Book fighting another mercenary in hand-to-hand – and making Mal look bad, as the Shepherd had the merc in a throat-lock and was chocking him into unconsciousness.

Mal hunted around the car. Two dead, one fighting Pherson, one being schooled by an old man, and the last was at the front of the car, shoving aside a women and leveling a gun at Mal's face-

The captain snapped up his pistol, not knowing if he would be fast enough, and then a shotgun roared behind the mercenary. The Talon pitched forward and lay still.

The train's engineer stood behind him, double-barrelled shotgun in hand, and nodded grimly, eyes unreadable behind the big black goggles he wore.

" . . . thanks," Mal said in the silence that followed.

* * *

A hundred thousand different thoughts, emotions, and sensation crashed into him in that moment, with different parts of his body all screaming different orders to him to do a variety of things. "Fight," "flee," and "indulge" were primary among them, and all of those emotions and sensations collided into a single blurred thought.

_Huh._

Jayne Cobb didn't kiss 'em on the mouth, but she wasn't giving him much choice. She had to practically climb up on him to reach him, but that didn't seem to bother her as she planted sloppy kisses over his face and mouth. Part of him was startled, confused, and trying to handle the sudden shift from "shoot" to "rut."

The other, animal part of him was scooping her up, putting one massive arm around the small of her back, and pulling her up into him, and returning the favor. She was small, she was slender, but she was strong for her frame and the muscles beneath her were solid and he could feel what curves she had pressing against him. His nose caught the scent of her, a smell that made him think of fresh linen, underneath the sweat and blood and grime.

It was then that part of him told him he _needed_ her, and she made a hungry-sounding noise at that and her mouth ran down his neck, doing _something_ that made him pull her tighter. She had no idea what she was doing, no experience in curving against or feeling or pleasing or being pleased by, but the enthusiasm was something he understood, an almost desperate need for him, and it left a _redness _in his mind that had nothing to do with rage.

He lifted her up, feeling her legs slide against his, hips against his stomach, and he spun her toward a crate. Jayne lifted the girl up toward the box, her fingers playing over his back as she held on.

"Girl," he breathed, some part of him warning him that _no, this was not right. _He ignored it for a moment as he set her down on the crate and started to lean over her. He heard her mumble something at the brief break in contact as she pulled her mouth away for a moment.

"Echo," she whispered, the word laced with desire and need.

Jayne jerked as if slapped, trying to break away from her, but she held on.

_No. _Something was _very_ wrong here. She made an unhappy, needy sound as he moved away that set his loins on fire, but Jayne beat down his libido for a critical second and grabbed the canteen of cold water on his belt.

She reached up for him, to kiss him again, and he emptied the entire thing onto her head.

River yelped in shock and flopped backward on the crate, and Jayne took the opportunity to take a long, safe step back. River stared at him through soaked hair, blinking, breathing hard, confused and uncertain. Jayne himself had to fight down the parts of him that were overriding his good sense and telling him to get back to business with her.

"_Xiao gui_," he gasped. "What the _hell_."

She stared at him for another few moments, and her breathing quickened, but not with need. She shivered and looked down at her hands, and then back up, around the room.

"This is now?" she asked.

"Uh, I think so," he replied.

"This is now," she repeated. "This is not then. Not . . . not training. Not John. Not blank, I can hear your pages, and your ink, and your . . ." Her cheeks flushed pink. "Your . . horn."

"Um," Jayne said, glancing down at his pants. "A bit?"

"Not . . . ." she shook her head. "This isn't." Her voice rose, becoming a shriek. "This isn't. It _isn't_! _It isn't_!"

"Isn't what?" he said, taking a step toward her. "What the hell is going on, River?"

She went silent for a moment, closing her eyes. Beneath her eyelids, Jayne saw them moving, and her lips mouth words. Then her eyes snapped open.

"It wasn't. We feel, but we don't, and its honest but its not. Inside. Inside inside of it inside of us."

"Girl?" Jayne asked, not wanting to have to smack her or speak her code-phrase.

And the moment he thought that, River somehow shot to her feet on top of the crate, and leapt _over_ him. He reached out to grab her, on pure reflex, but she snaked around his grip and scooped up her sword.

"River, wait!" he yelled, and his arm snatched out, this time grabbing her arm.

She twisted in his grip, getting her arm loose, and the flat of her sword tapped his arm.

The next thing Jayne knew, he was staring at the ceiling of the train car, and every part of him hurt like hell.

"The hell . . . ?" he managed after a while.

* * *

Zoë saw the gunships circling around the train, and watched one of them fire a barrage at the front, where she knew the rest of the crew were still fighting.

A cold flash of anger slid through Zoë, and she holstered her lever-action. She scooped up one of her longarms, and stepped outside, ignoring the added weight in her gut as she climbed up on the ladder. She saw the Widow gunship circling back around, gun tracking over the forward cars.

She knew the design. The Widow had been used by mercenaries for a long time, and the Independents had flown quite a few during the Unification War. The reason was because they were cheap to buy, but the reason they were _cheap_ was because they had a few fail points in the design that meant it was never picked up by the Alliance.

One of those fail points was in the engine assembly, just behind the cockpit, which rendered the Widow design vulnerable to small arms fire. Most gunships could stand up to gunfire from rifles and light machineguns, but the design on the Widow skimped on the armor.

Zoë braced herself on the ladder, raised the long rifle, and settled in behind the sights. Jayne was their resident sharpshooter, but Zoë was almost as good.

She waited for the Widow to swing around for another pass, and as it leveled out, she squeezed the trigger. The rifle barked, and she worked the action. She fired another shot.

Pump, click. _Bang. _

The pilot of the gunship looked around, as if he noticed he was being shot at.

Pump, click. _Bang. _

The pilot pointed at Zoë, noticing her.

Pump, click. _Bang._

The gunship's chin-mounted cannon swung up to point at her.

Pump, click. _Bang._

* * *

"They're dead?" whispered Bascjo, staring in confusion. "They're _all _dead?"

"We're getting no radio contact, sir," replied the gunship pilot.

He stared at the train, horror and confusion warring for control. Forty of his best mercenaries had been wiped out like . . . like disposable extras in a bad action vid. A half-dozen hired thugs had killed _his_ mercenary teams _twice_?

One of his gunships suddenly started spinning, smoke erupting from its engine assembly. Bascjo watched in fascinated horror as the million-dollar Widow started to keel over, and then went into a nosedive into one of the canyons below. It smashed against the rock wall and dropped out of sight.

Horror and confusion then very quickly gave way to a different emotion: _rage_.

"We're too close to Alliance airspace to play games anymore," he snarled. "We'll dig up the corpse afterward. Destroy the train."

* * *

_Clarity_

Four cars back, they had stopped. They looked up when she entered, but didn't try to stop her. They just stood or sat or huddled, lost and confused and afraid.

They weren't in control, River reminded herself. _They hadn't been for a long time_.

She stepped past them. Laertes twitched in her hand as he feet carried her between them – the programming said there was a threat, and part of her needed to eliminate the threat. She ignored it, pushing it down as she walked to the rear of the train car.

Pain spiked through her leg; the calf _muscles complained _bitterly, **with gold and red letters**, but she ignored them.

"I understand," she said.

Silence. She _felt apathy_, and _forgetfulness_ _**bounced off **_the minds of the ones behind her. The gray and blankness was _obvious_ now that she knew what to look for. So **obvious** it should have been clear the moment she looked at them. They didn't really _hear_ her, or notice her.

They weren't being _**allowed**_ to.

"I didn't at first," she continued, hands twitching. Blood still stained her hands and clothes, matted her hair, sizzled and blackened on her sword, singed in her nostrils. She could feel the _**storm of emotions **_around the train abating suddenly, spotlights of _thought_ and _memory_ and _fear_ and _**excitement **_and **pain** flaring up and vanishing.

"I know why," she said. "I needed to be distracted. I _was_ distracted." River paused, the monologue faltering as she remembered

_-hand sliding down her back, his grunt as she put her tongue to-_

River jerked. The memory was _fresh, sharp_, cutting into her resolve.

"I know," River whispered, stepping forward, advancing, keeping her mind as still as possible. Inability to filter her emotions meant she could only focus on things that evoked emotions. She gathered thoughts, memories of fear and resolve, of Simon lying gutshot, of Kaylee paralyzed, of the crew surrounded by pirates, of Book slicing apart Reavers, of Mal and Jayne and Zoë and Inara and-

"Stop. Making. Me. Feel," River growled, stopping in front of the last person in the train car. "I know. I didn't because you didn't let me, you kept me fuddled and confused and wanting . . . ."

_Jerk. Shift_. _**Shiver**_ at the memory of _**him**_.

"Pieces came together. Inconsistencies. Odd feelings. Odd people, odd actions. I know what you're doing. I know what you are, now," she said, the words _s__**ha**_ki_ng_ their way out of her mouth. "And . . . I know _you_."

Dark eyes stared back up at River, and she gripped Laertes tightly.

Her arm twitched again. There was a _**threat**_, and the _programming_ told her to strike, _now_, **hard**, _quick_, **immediately**. Electricity sizzled down the sword, and she heard gunfire in the distance.

"Inducer One-One-Nine," River breathed.

A little black-haired girl with a bandage Zoë had wrapped around her upper arm a couple of days ago stared back up at her.

"Empath One-Three-Seven," murmured the little girl.

"Kathryn Wade," River whispered, and she _felt_ her voice crack. "_Katie_."

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**Mine is an evil laugh.

This chapter took a long damn time to write. Came out to thirty-three pages. Phew.

Until next chapter . . . .


	57. Chapter Eight: Purpose

**File Reconstruction Complete**

**Project Cerberus: Cerebral - Enhancement Recursion System**

**Psychological Profile**

**Test Subject- Inducer 000-119 - Wade, Kathryn**

_Abstract: Subject suffers from acute mental scarring due to enhancement process. Neural modification and stripping process has damaged emotional centers of the brain, though the subject's young age has ensured that damaged tissue has recovered as she aged._

_Psychologically, subject shows mild sociopathy and catatonic schizophrenia, especially during combat operations, along with violent reactions to paraphernalia and employees associated with Cerberus project and operations. Despite this, subject remains lucid and capable of affecting human mental processes, with particular aptitude for inducing both sympathetic and apathetic responses, with range estimated to be beyond twenty kilometers. Capacity to manipulate through tactile contact noted to be at least an order of magnitude more effective. _

_As with all Inducers, subject must not under any circumstances be allowed to interact with an Empath, especially combat-conditioned ones. If subject's mental disabilities can be properly treated, combat-effectiveness could be realized and Inducer One-One-Nine could be deployed for defense operations._

* * *

_**Chapter Eight: Purpose**_

* * *

Silence.

"How long?" River asked.

"Since you escaped," the little girl replied. "I proved Doctor Kondraki was right."

Kathryn Wade stared up at River Tam, seated on a crate. Now that River was _sensate_ enough to notice her, she remembered the face from some of the training exercises: not as haggard and pale and _twisted_ with fear and anger as she remembered, but familiar nonetheless.

"Doctor Kon . . . " River frowned, shaking her head. "I know that name."

"I think he was with your group," Katie said, and closed her eyes. Pain _**bubbled**_ inside of her. "I'm not sure . . . don't like remembering."

She shook her head and opened her eyes - eyes that were far too _wary and intelligent _for a nine-year-old.

"How did you find me?"

"Inconsistencies," River repeated, thinking. "Little things. The engineer didn't remember when he brought you out here. No one remembered the dead man. No one talked about the Blue Sun lab."

Katie's eyes flashed as she said that last, and a spike of **anger** shot through River, _clawing_ up inside of her. Her fingers twitched, and Laertes rose up. Programming _hissed in her ear_, telling her to not talk, not **waste time **communicating, there was a threat to her and her family and the people she needed to protect _**and kill it now**_

**Calm **crashed through her like water from a broken dam, and even though the programming told her to - _kill slash stab strike twenty-nine easy kill-points accessible on the threat now within the first half-second of combat followed by exponential increases of potential strikes_ - River's heart slowed down. She shook her head, mumbling in discomfort, and took a step back from Katie.

"Stop. It."

Katie closed her eyes again, and shivered.

"Can't control it sometimes," she murmured.

River felt the anger fade away, and recovered herself. She steadied and prepared to speak a _**spike **_of accusation.

"You killed them."

Katie was silent, staring back, and then . . . _nothing_. No anger. No denial. No fear. Nothing at all.

_**Cold.**_

"Yes," she whispered. "I killed them."

* * *

"_Sir, do we use guns or missiles?" _the pilot asked.

Commander Bascjo grunted.

"This mission has already been too expensive," he said. "Guns only for now. I'm not wasting money on missiles."

"Understood, sir."

* * *

"Ow!"

Simon was used to Mal responding unhappily to his ministrations. The gunshot wounds and lacerations and bruises and other assorted injuries he'd suffered over the last few minutes of frantic combat were painful, but Mal had refused any of Simon's painkillers. The doctor didn't apologize as he sprayed a disinfectant on the gunshot wound and applied some biofoam to the injury. The bullet had gone clean through and thankfully missed any vital blood vessels, but Mal was shaky from blood loss anyway.

He had to move fast, because there were other injuries to be treated. The worst wounds on the captain were bandaged and sealed, and Simon started to move away to another injured civilian. He made sure to keep his submachinegun slung and secured out of the way while he crouched beside a woman who had shrapnel digging in her side.

Simon spared a glance a few seconds later, to see Inara having entered the car, stopping beside Mal. They spoke quietly, and Simon overheard some of what they were saying.

"Mal," Inara said, somehow still looking elegant and beautiful while blood speckled her clothes and a torque bow was in her hands. "Are you-"

"I'm fine," he muttered, hefting his rifle. "Got work to do. This ain't over yet."

She nodded, and her free hand brushed his as he started to move past. There was a moment of tension as they slowed, but nothing else. Mal carried on, while Inara hurried to Simon's side to help him with his work.

Out the corner of his eye, Simon saw Mal stepping past one of the holes that had been blasted in the train car's walls. He stopped to look outside.

Mal went rigid for the span of a single second, and Simon recognized the look on his face just before he opened his mouth and bellowed for everyone to take cover. Simon reacted by reflex, as did everyone else in the blood-splattered car, and an instant later there was another repetition of that hideous noise. Cannon rounds tore through wood, sending splintering fragments everywhere, while metal screamed and rent as the bullets sliced it apart.

There was a different edge to the ferocity of this new attack, and Simon felt a hideous chill run down his body. The gunships weren't suppressing the train's defenders this time.

They were shooting to kill.

* * *

Jayne hauled himself to his feet, accompanied a bitch of an ache that stretched across his whole damn body. He'd been hit by all manner of nonlethal weaponry before, but none of them were pleasant to recover from, and he counted being smacked by the flat end of a sword covered in lightning as being one of the _least_ enjoyable in that lot.

He steadied himself, waiting for the pain to die down enough for rational thought, and started asking himself what the hell had happened. The girl had freaked out after going down on him like she'd just shot up enough drugs to make a nun forget her habits. What the hell did that mean?

"Hell," he muttered, and added a few other words in Mandarin as he scooped up Vera and changed magazines. He had to find the _xiao gui _and either talk some sense out of her or smack some sense _into_ her.

That plan faded the instant he heard a storm of autocannon fire, and Jayne bolted toward the front of the train car.

That sound meant only one thing: the gunships were back, and they were after blood now that their buddies were dead.

He stepped out into the rushing air of the still-moving train, the wind hammering his face, especially now that his sunglasses were gone. River must have gotten them off his head while they'd been at it.

He climbed up to peer over the roof of the train, and _gorrammit_, one of those gunships was firing into the forward cars, flying maybe two hundred meters away. A damned difficult shot.

Jayne didn't even pause. He'd made harder shots, like the sumbitch who'd been sniping at Kaylee on Persephone. He shouldered Vera and steadied his aim. Maybe he'd get lucky, hit something vital or punch a shot through the cockpit and kill the crew. Miracles could happen.

He was about to fire when another gun went off about an inch from his ear, and he jerked in surprise.

Beside him, on another ladder leading to the car's rooftop, was Zoë. He hadn't heard her approach, so focused was he on shooting.

She glanced to him as she pumped the rifle's action and he nodded. Jayne pivoted back to the bastards shooting up his crew, steadied his weapon, and opened up on the Widow.

* * *

"Why?"

Katie stared back up at River, and _**darkness**_ swirled around them. _**Darkness and cold **_memories _of steel _and _**pain**_ and cutting and _needles_ and **gummy injections**.

A name _flickered_.

"Kondraki," River said, picking the name out of the air.

More concepts _flickered_ and _sizzled_ into the space between them, like glowing mosquitos. River tried to follow them, but it wasn't a _torrent or tide of thought_, just _tiny memories _and **flecks of sensation**.

"It was Kondraki, wasn't it?" River asked, and Katie nodded.

"He got me out," she murmured. "He was . . . greedy." She looked back up at River. "It made him easy."

The _**mosaic**_ of thoughts and _sandstorm_ of memories coalesced into an image, like a movie being made out of _colored sand and inks_. River pieced it together.

"He helped you escape while Simon was rescuing me," she said, and Katie nodded again. "We were a distraction."

"Careful, quiet," Katie said. "No one noticed. I had to work on him a while, so he wouldn't notice I was turning him." She shivered. "Made him think it was his idea."

River's eyes narrowed, and she remembered _**the heat **_and _**pulse**_ and _**need**_.

"That's what you do, isn't it?" River asked, words low and quiet, danger prowling inside them. "Make people's desires feel intrinsic."

Katie shook her head, eyes locked on River's.

"I can't make someone feel something that isn't there," she replied. "Zero multiplied by anything is still zero."

River felt herself shudder as she realized what Katie meant. She knew what the Inducers did, but hearing the words added extra layers of _**real**_ and _**terrible**_ truth to them.

A _bolt of understanding _shot through her, and River tightened her grip on Laertes.

"Why?" she demanded, much lower and much more dangerously. "Why did you kill them?"

Katie blinked, but River knew this dance. She kept herself focused; the slightest deviation would give Katie a wedge to shove her mind in and draw her off. She was subtle, tricky, smart, clever, other adjectives.

"Don't distract me," River said, taking a step closer. "Why did those people die?"

"I . . . didn't want them to," Katie said, withdrawing, a flicker of worry and fear crossing her features.

"Don't lie," River said, pushing harder. "You _killed_ them."

She didn't like it. River wasn't an aggressive person, and she didn't push people like Mal or Zoë or Jayne or anyone else. She _saw_ _and tasted _and _heard _the fear in Katie, the apprehension, _blinking_ like **yellow spots **around her, but she tried to ignore the sympathy, and

River blinked. Katie was shaking a bit, and suddenly River realized how scared she had to be, how frightened and alone and desperate the girl was. They were the same. Katie had been through the same hell, and seeing her like this was sending a _**hot wave **__of pained grief through her._

She felt her knees buckle, and right as River sank to the floor, her eyes warming with hot wetness and shaking with sobs, she understood.

Katie was forcing the grief and sadness onto her.

That couldn't stop the pain and fear and despair. It crowded into her mind, pushing out the rest, flooding her with tears, and she could only shake and sob. Her vision went completely blurry as tears poured over her cheeks, and Laertes fell to the floor from fingers too weak to grasp it.

As River sat there crying, Katie settled onto the floor across from her.

"They needed to die," Katie whispered, voice barely audible over River's uncontrolled sobs and the distant gunfire.

"They _deserved_ to die."

* * *

Shots hammered the first two train cars as the Widows moved back and forth, raking it with gunfire. Bascjo saw the bullets punching into the engine car, but the shots did nothing to slow it down.

_"Sir, cannon is not effective on the engine," _the Widow's pilot reported. _"Also, we're taking small arms fire."_

Bascjo cursed again. The cannon was designed to destroy light vehicles or infantry. It could kill the train's engine car, but the car was tough and ruggidized to deal with the stress of operating this far out. Riddling it with bullets would wear it down, but not fast enough.

Plus he'd already lost one Widow to small arms fire. No reason to risk the other two.

"Okay, pull back," he ordered. "We'll hit it with missiles."

_As expensive as that might be, _he thought sourly.

The Widows peeled off, getting to a safe distance well outside of small arms range, and he waited for the firestorm that would spell the completion of this hideously costly contract.

* * *

The gunfire abruptly ceased. The passengers didn't rise, however, expecting more gunfire to come in any second. Mal stood carefully and looked out the window. The wind cutting through the damaged walls buffeted his hair and face, and he had to shield his eyes.

"They're peeling off," he said, but he was more confused than happy, and that confusion rapidly gave way to dread. He looked up to Shepherd Book, who was crouching on the floor a couple of meters away, shielding some of the passengers with his body.

"They're not retreating," the preacher said, looking out at the Widows as they circled around.

"_Ta mah de_," Mal breathed, realization hitting him.

Two cars back, Jayne watched with confusion as well, which rapidly shifted to dread.

"Oh hell," he muttered.

"Missiles," Zoë said beside him, her words lost in the buffeting wind. She and Jayne glanced to each other, and dropped back down, ducking inside the train cars and the meager protection it would offer.

Mal stared out the hole, at the Widows, and his eyes flicked to something else, beyond the gunships. His eyes widened, and he spun toward Inara as the Widows came back around for their last attack run. He grabbed onto her, pulling her down to the floor.

"Everyone, down!" he yelled.

There was the sudden rushing hiss of a launched missile, an unholy amount of noise and light.

* * *

The Widow carrying Bascjo whirled and bucked, and he was momentarily blinded by the detonation. He let out a yelp of shock and confusion, and then blinked his eyes until he could see.

On the radar display, his other remaining Widow was _gone_, replaced by tumbling debris. An enormous radar contact was bearing down on them, a massive heavy freighter that had just shot a missile that had blown his Widow out of the air.

"Evade!" Bascjo yelled, and the Widow dove aside as the enormous freighter lumbered past, nearly smashing his tiny gunship. The Widow barely dodged the vessel.

"Bring us around, shoot that sack of _luh suh _down!" he ordered. There were not going to be any big damned-

The radar flashed as something else dove toward them, moving far faster than the heavy freighter than had destroyed the other Widow. The pilot immediately sent the Widow into an evasive loop, but the other contact seemed to weave inside the dodge as if it had read the pilot's mind.

Bascjo looked up, and saw the ungainly but distinctive shape of a Firefly-class freighter bearing down on them, cargo bay angled directly toward the gunship. He caught the name of the ship, painted on the hull in delicate letters, proclaiming it was _Serenity_.

The engineers who designed the Widow had built it for speed and evasion. It wasn't rated for air-to-air collisions. The engineers who built the Firefly-class freighters had designed the ship to be able to hit a planet head on with its cargo bay without deforming.

Bascjo's Widow crumpled like a paper cup, against Serenity's reinforced cargo bay. The cockpit section was smashed inward and crushed the occupants, while the engines were mangled into unrecognizable pieces. The Widow toppled from the sky and fell into the canyons below to shatter on the rocks.

* * *

"Not pretty," Hoban Washburne said with a grin as he felt the impact and watched the jerks who had been shooting at his crew and his wife tumble and hit the stone far below and shatter into hundreds of bitty pieces.

"But I ain't Merlin."

* * *

_"Mal?" _the voice yelled in his earpiece. _"Hey, Mal? You all right down there?"_

Mal blinked, confused. Inara could see this, quite clearly, as his face was inches from hers.

" . . . Monty?" he asked.

_"Hey, you're alive!" _Monty's voice yelled. _"And the skies are clear! Ya'll are safe!" _

Outside, they could heard the roar of the massive freighter's engines as it swung around to fly parallel with the train. Mal pushed himself up off of Inara, though not without a moment's hesitation, and she smiled at him.

Through the shredded side of the train car, they could see the open cargo bay of Monty's ship, the wild-haired, bearded bear of a man stood there, waving with one hand while the other held a hefty missile launcher. Monty put a hand to his ear, grinning like a lunatic.

"Saved your ass again, huh, Mal?" he called.

"Good timing," Mal said into the radio, and glanced to Inara. "Don't you agree that was good timing, Inara?"

"Yes," she said, nodding. "Excellent timing."

Her words were lost as ragged cheers of victory filled the train, drowning out everything else.

* * *

_Triumph lashed _against her, _poured in through her skin and ears and nose_, and River shuddered. Cheers and victory and happiness and disbelief flooded _**from dozens of books and inks**_, and victory _clashed_ with grief.

River grabbed it, holding it tight, while listening through the sobs.

"I'm supposed to be normal," Katie said, words tight and quiet and angry. "I'm supposed to be a person, not a thing. Not hunted. Not an animal. We're _not supposed _to be animals."

She looked up at River, _anger_ _flickering off _of her and _nesting _in her eyes.

"Do _we _deserve this? Why did they do this to us?"

River didn't respond, except to keep crying, even as she let the warm triumph boil away the grief Katie had forced down into her mind.

"You understand, River," she added. "Blue Sun. They sponsored it – all of it. And they were close to where we were hiding. I had to kill them. They deserved it, and they were dangerous, and-"

"Lying," River breathed, and her fingers clutched at Laertes' handle, warm metal and wood in her grasp.

"They were innocent," River said. "They worked for Blue Sun, but they weren't the ones who _cut_ on us."

Katie glared at River, the anger doubling over as _River poured fuel _onto the fire. She grabbed at that anger, used it to steady herself, to remind her that Katie was dangerous and she couldn't be forced down by empathy.

"They deserved to die," Katie repeated, hate _that did not fit_ a girl that young dripping from her words.

"Why did you kill Kondraki?" River asked.

"Shut up," Katie snapped, anger building up. "Just . . . shut up. You're supposed to understand!"

"Why did you kill him?" River asked again, not back down, despite the fact that part of her thought that maybe Katie was right, and-

River shook her head.

"Stop. Making. Me. Feel."

She recognized the sympathy, the grief pushing down on her again, and the exultation from the others was fading, making it harder to focus. Katie said nothing, just stared at River, and pain and grief hammered her again, forcing her down.

"Why," River breathed, and started shaking with sobs again. "Why . . . did you kill him?"

"I said shut up," Katie hissed, and she took a couple of steps back.

River's fingers tightened around Laertes, and she looked down at the sword. Tears were forming again in her eyes, and she tried standing, but Katie wasn't letting her. Pain and despair and sympathy _flooded _her thoughts.

River fell back to the floor, and Katie stared at her, anger and frustration _boiling_ off the Inducer as she forced River down.

* * *

The old adage said that the only thing more melancholy than a battle lost was a battle won, but they hadn't gotten to that point yet. Everyone was still exulting over their survival. The mercenaries had been defeated and they were safe in Alliance-established no-fly airspace. According to the train's engineer, it would survive long enough to reach the nearest station.

Alliance troops would be all over the place soon enough, Mal realized. They needed to get the survivors loaded up and to safety. Monty might be able to help with that.

Elder Pherson was moving among his people, expression sour as he checked on the wounded while Simon tended them. Mal walked toward him, not enjoying the prospect of speaking with him, especially as he still had his shotgun.

"Pherson," he said as he approached. The elder looked up, and his expression grew darker and angrier.

"Reynolds," he barked. "I suppose now you'll be abandoning us to the Alliance once your job is finished."

"Listen," Mal said with as fake a smile as he could muster. "Why don't you take that pile of stupid you got 'tween your ears and eject it, because we got more important things to worry about."

"You son of a-"

"First things first, Alliance will be on this train like crows on a battlefield, so we gotta get your folks off as fast as possible," Mal said. "Once we hit the train station in the next few minutes, you and yours will get on my friend's boat, and we'll get you somewhere safe."

"If you think I'm going to trust-" Pherson began to protest, but Mal sighted Jayne and Zoë entered from the other side of the train car, and promptly ignored the sputtering elder.

"You two okay?" he asked as he strode toward them. They nodded.

"Rear of the train's clear," Zoë said. "No hostiles." As she said that, she stepped past him and started for the front of the train, calling out a name. Mal had no idea who this "Katie" girl was, but he guessed that was the kid she'd taken a shine to.

"Mal," Jayne cut in. "Ya'll ain't seen River up here, have you?"

"No, why?" Mal asked.

"Girl flipped out on me earlier," Jayne said. "Uh, I'm uh, not sure if it was the fightin' or what, but she ran off after zapping me with that lightnin' sword of hers."

Mal snarled a curse under his breath, and sighed.

"Let's go find her," he said. "Ain't at the front of the cars, so she's got to be to the rear. We'll start there."

"Reynolds!" Pherson called suddenly, and Mal nodded to the rear of the train.

_"Quickly," _Mal added, and Jayne nodded, taking the lead as they started for the rear of the train, doing their best to ignore the increasingly irate village elder following them.

* * *

"You want to know _why_?" Katie said, and River looked up, through the _haze_ of irrational grief that had paralyzed her. The girl started to pace back and forth, muttering.

"Because I spent two _years being cut_," she snarled, her words too knowing and _too adult _for her age. "Two years with them in my head, making things _not _and making things _real_ that _weren't_ and _are_ and _might be_! There's nothing left for me. For us. We can't function anymore! We don't have family!"

_A spike of clarity _shot through River, and she inhaled sharply.

"Zoë."

Katie froze, and then shook her head.

"Yes, Zoë," she admitted. "I . . . I indulged. I needed a mother again."

"You used her," River whispered through _the shudder _and _the hurt._

" . . . .yes," Katie admitted.

"Like you used the villagers," River muttered. Her anger started to come back, while Katie was distracted, and she used it to fight the grief and sadness. "How many of them . . . died when you . . . killed the Blue Sun lab?"

Katie went silent for several seconds, refusing to look at River, and then finally turned back to her.

"Murderer," River breathed.

"And? I didn't shove a pen through a man's throat because I hated his questions," Katie snapped.

River jerked as if slapped, and _the counselor's face flashed up in front of her_, her hand felt _the tiny vibrations as __the pen __**crunched**__through his __**windpipe**__, and __blood ran down her fingers._

"Kondraki told me," Katie whispered. "You murdered him. No orders. No mission. He hurt you. You hurt him back."

River shivered at Katie's stare, and part of her _went frigid _at her words.

She was right.

Wasn't she? Or was she making River _think_ she was?

Truth rang in her words, though.

_"He told me that Simon was very busy. He told me that I couldn't see him because he was too important. He listened, and he . . . he wrote . . and he knew I was crazy and he just kept . . . writing."_

_Her fingers tightened around the bowl._

_"I . . . _wrote_ instead," she whispered, jaw clenching. "I saw them, and I showed them I could _write_, too. And then they were scared of me."_

The explanation she'd given to Dannett echoed back to her.

Katie stared at River for a moment, and then her eyes flicked over her head, to the front of the train car, and she whispered something under her breath.

_**Hatred** ripped down through the train, **clawing **and _**slashing **_and biting and_-

* * *

"Reynolds!" Pherson called, following Mal and Jayne. Anger seeped into his voice. "Get back here, you bastard, I need to speak with you!"

"Once I get my crew straightened out," Mal replied, ignoring the elder as he followed way too close. The captain turned his head to Jayne. "She flipped out again? Any idea why?"

"Uh, no clue," Jayne admitted, but Mal thought he was being evasive. Before he could further questions, however, Pherson got too close and grabbed the back of his long coat.

"Goddammit, Reynolds, I'm sick of your bullshit!" Pherson snarled, his voice doing nothing to hide the hatred and rage. Mal stopped and looked back at him.

"You got your people to worry about," the captain shot back. "Worry over them. I worry over mine."

"My people _are dead _because of your idiotic plan," Pherson snarled, rising up into Mal's face. "You better goddamn listen to me, you Alliance-loving son of a-"

Mal's fist flew across on reflex, smashing into Pherson and knocking him off his feet once more. Mal glared down at the elder as blazing fury and murderous hatred gleamed in the man's eyes.

"Call me Alliance again," Mal growled, tapping his pistol, "and you'll be hopping for the rest of your life."

He turned to walk toward the rear of the train, and Jayne began to follow, when Pherson rose and screamed in a tone of pure, violent, berserk fury.

And the shotgun Pherson was carrying rose with him.

"Mal!" Jayne yelled, drawing his revolver as Pherson leveled his weapon. Jayne shifted sideways as Mal spun, and the big mercenary shoved the captain out of the way even as Mal drew his own pistol.

The shotgun roared in close quarters, and Mal flinched as pain lanced up his gun arm. Blood flew and the stench of freshly-ignited cordite filled the room.

Pherson took a long step forward, starting to pump the action on his shotgun as he advanced, and Jayne leveled Boo.

There was a thunderous roar as Mal tried to stand, his arm going numb, blood everywhere. Jayne fell backward, cursing and shouting and face twisting in pain as Pherson smashed the butt of his shotgun into the mercenary's chest. Boo discharged into the rooftop.

Pherson took a step forward toward Mal, and the captain looked down to see blood covering his arm and his pistol on the floor. Inside the sleeves of his coat, Mal could see the shotgun pellets had shredded his arm, digging deep and grievous wounds.

Mal surged forward before Pherson could finish pumping the shotgun, swinging his left arm up in a vicious hook.

His opponent's shotgun rose, faster than it should have, or maybe Mal was just too battered to judge time correctly. Either way, Pherson seemed to duck around and under the blow, and rose with the butt of the shotgun swinging up into Mal's face.

The impact was somewhere on his skull, but Mal didn't know where, as his entire head exploded in sheer agony, and everything went black for an instant.

The floor slammed into Mal's back, blasting the air from his lungs, and his vision returned in time for him to watch in hideous detail as Pherson pumped the shotgun. A spent shell casing went tumbling down, and he saw the elder's face twisted in violent, insane hatred, something no rational man could feel.

Pherson's shotgun pointed down at Mal's head, and darkness swam up to swallow him before the elder could fire.

The last thing Mal saw was Boo rising up to point at Pherson's head, no more than a handspan away, and then -

* * *

River jerked, the sudden burst of gunfire sending a _horrifying clarity _into her mind.

"I'm sorry, River," Katie said, tone distracted. "This is a private conversation."

River stared at the girl, even as the sudden pain from

_-gunshot impact **darkness** agony in the mind and _**hate**_ and confusion and _**madness clawing at**_-_

The pain granted clarity. She understood how everything had happened.

"Forthill knew," River breathed. "Or he guessed. He went to raise the flag to Book. So you had someone kill him when he left. Then you had him kill himself."

Katie's attention snapped back toward River.

"You made the villagers kill the Blue Sun workers," she continued. "But you were sloppy. Someone got out a message. The Academy figured it out. Talon Company was in the area, so they were sent to kill you."

Katie stared at River, and denied nothing. River could _taste_ the truth in her words from _the flickers _of thoughts in the Inducer's mind.

"You killed them," River said, trying to rise, anger boiling forth again. "You _killed_ them."

Her _awareness flicked _back down the train, and she brushed _**a fading book**_, the _inks of the mindpages running together into darkess_.

She shot to her feet, grabbing her blade, as she suddenly understood what had driven this clarity into her.

"You killed him!" she screamed, **and she saw him**, _lying on the floor_, Jayne _**yelling for Simon as he tried to stem the bleeding**_.

_-multiple impact wounds along the right arm, extensive damage to the biceps, heavy bleeding, will suffer complete lethal bleed-out in four minutes if untreated, heavy cranial damage due to blunt force trauma, possible brain injuries-_

Captain Malcolm Reynolds was dying.

River surged forward, Laertes rising, electricity flying down its length. The programming reacted, directing her blade as she descended toward Katie, striking before-

River met Katie's eyes as the girl backpedaled in surprise and fear, and she cried out in terror, shielding her face with her hands-

Feet faltered. _Determination _and _clarity_ _**buckled**_, _horror replacing them_, and then shock and pity and disbelief that she was about to murder a child.

A child. And not just a child. One of _them_. _One like her_.

_Mal was still dying and _the programming _was screaming to **KILLKILLSTABKILLMAIMBURN** and anger and terror and cold logic were telling her to strike but _**Katie was small and helpless and innocent**

_was she innocent or was she making herself seem innocent_

But she was one of the Academy's creations. Just like River. just like the others. Just like

_**echo**_

Katie had lowered her arms as River stood there, a _hurricane_ of thought and emotion and uncertainties running through her, and then the Inducer spoke.

"But you understand," Katie said. "Don't you?

_**The hurricane **_died, replaced by one overwhelmingly clear realization.

She looked at Katie, and she understood. God, she understood. They were the same. She was hurting, just like River, just like everyone else who had _needles_ and _sharp_ and **cold** _and silver in their blood __and cut __**and**_

River's hand rose, and she watched with a detached, wet-faced curiosity as her fingers stretched toward Katie.

The Inducer's hand rose and clasped River's-

River blinked. She looked around the train car, and could hear the deafening silence of a battle that was over, of engines slowing, of people exulting in survival and victory and desperation as Simon ran to Mal

_-terror, fear, confusion, centered around-_

Her gaze snapped back to Katie, who was still holding her hand. She was so small, so scared, and River could see tears in her eyes.

"They wouldn't understand, River," the Inducer whispered. "They didn't understand you, did they? They were scared, too. They still are, aren't they?"

Like they had chained her up and locked her in her room and whispered dark, frightened things about her. Katie was right. The crew were right, too, Simon and Mal and Zoë and Jayne and . . . . but Katie was in danger. If they knew what she was . . . .

_"She goes wooly again, we'll have to put a bullet in her."_

_"The thought's crossed my mind."_

River jerked at those words, words she remembered Mal and Jayne sharing when she'd gone berserk the first time.

She looked back to Katie, who was still clenching her fingers tightly, so hard they hurt.

Katie needed to be safe.

River slowly stood, sheathing Laertes as she rose. The sword's hilt clicked into place. clamps locking it down, while she kept her fingers around Katie's hand. The girl bent down, wincing in pain in her leg as she carefully picked up the little girl and cradled her in her arms.

"Someplace safe," Katie murmured.

_"Serenity _is safe," River offered. "I can explain to them. They'll-"

"They won't," Katie breathed.

No, River realized. They wouldn't.

"Somewhere else, then," River said, and Katie nodded, resting her head against River's upper chest and neck. River shifted her weight slightly, and then headed for the front of the car.

* * *

The train had come to a halt at a station just inside the no-fly zone. A decent-sized town had grown up around the station, but it was still just place of wood and nails, not concrete and steel and glass like a modern station. None of _Serenity's_ crew seemed to notice, for they were wrapped up in something far more critical.

Mal was dying.

It was an awful tableau in that train car. Simon was crouched over Mal, working to stem the bleeding while he lay unconscious. Inara was beside him, and they were both marked by his blood as they fought to save Mal. Jayne stood over them, beside Pherson's corpse, afraid and nervous and worried, while Book stood removed from the group, head bowed over his Bible as he asked for God's grace and mercy.

Zoë simply stared, transfixed by what lay before her, disbelief on her features and tainting the air around her.

Not one of them so much as raised an eye as River Tam walked past them, Katie held in her arms. The Inducer made sure of that, for everyone's safety.

River stopped beside Mal, watching as her brother fought to save his life. Hot wetness ran down her face as she saw his still features, his body growing paler, and she could feel the wounds and damage across his body, just as she could feel Simon's steely determination to not let him die, and Inara's horrified fear for Mal, unmasked and laid bare.

She watched it all, detached and uncertain, and she turned her gaze up, to Book, to Zoë, and then to Jayne. Her eyes locked on Jayne's features for the longest, and a _shuddering warmth_ ran through her.

Katie murmured in her arms, and River shook her head. She wanted to stay with them, to help her crew, to let them understand, but . . . .

They wouldn't.

River moved past them, and continued on until she was out of the room, though every step was weighted with guilt and uncertainty.

She opened the door leading outside, and stepped off the train, letting Katie down to stand beside her. The girl held her hand, and River gripped hers tightly, to make sure she didn't lose her.

The sun beat down on her, and the dusty wind blew in River's face as she walked away from the train. She could _hear _Simon and Inara and Zoë as they worked on Mal, and she stopped to look back at the halted cars.

Katie's grip tightened on her hand, and River shuddered before resuming her walk, and they moved into the growing crowd of people surrounding the station, gathering at the sight of the battle-scarred transport.

She had to protect Katie. They had to stick together, as much as it hurt her to leave her crew and her brother and her captain behind. Simon _followed_ her in her head, and she _listened_ as he worked to staunch the bleeding and to save Mal's life.

"I . . . I'm . . . ." River tried to whisper to him as she led Katie on to safety. She stepped away from the train and across the platform. Laertes was sheathed and held in one hand, Katie was in the other, and they left no trace of their passing. Finally, she was able to form the thought into words as they disappeared into the crowd.

"I'm sorry," River breathed, and sniffled. "Simon, please . . . .

"Forgive me."

* * *

Until next chapter . . . .


	58. Charity: Epilogue: Promise

_**Epilogue: Promise**_

Mal was still alive.

"Come on, come on, Jayne! Get him in!"

"I'm behind you, _gorrammit_! Keep your ass moving!"

Between Monty and Jayne, the two brawny men were able to handle Mal's stretcher like it was loaded with feathers. Monty had wanted them to treat Mal in his infirmary, but Zoë had insisted that they bring him back to Serenity. Wash and Kaylee were just coming down to meet them, and Zoë winced at their horrified expressions as the two men hauled Mal's unconscious body to the Infirmary, Simon running ahead to get the room ready. Inara trailed behind them, eyes locked on Mal and naked worry on her features.

"What happened?" Kaylee asked, boots hammering down the stairs, Wash right behind her. "G_osade,_ is he-"

"Doc's got him, don't worry," Zoë assured her. "Wash, we got noticed yet?"

"Uh," he said, stopping. The gears in his head were still spinning. "No, no Alliance yet. Won't stay that way forever, though."

"Get us ready to leave the moment you hear a buzz," she said, and he nodded, starting back up the stairs.

"What happened?" Kaylee repeated, and Zoë paused. Kaylee looked nearly in tears, and for good reason. They'd all been banged up badly before, but they'd never seen Mal so horribly injured except for that once where he'd chosen to stay on the ship and gotten himself shot.

"We're not sure ourselves," replied Book's kindly voice, the preacher having slipped in behind them in the confusion. There was a moment's silence, and then, by unspoken assent, the trio started for the infirmary.

Inara was outside, watching intently as Simon worked over Mal's wounds with singleminded determination. Jayne was looming against a wall, watching just as hard. Monty was pacing back and forth, cursing and flexing his fingers with anxiety, hair and beard waving with each wild, angry turn he made.

"Ja-" Zoë started.

"Doc says he can save 'im," Jayne said quickly, frustration in his voice. "Knocked bad on the head though. No idea on brain damage." He clenched a fist for a moment.

"What the hell's happening?" Monty cut in. "What kinda trouble did ya'll get into?"

"Don't right know entirely ourselves," Zoë said. "One minute we're helping the Shepherd Book here bury a friend of his, then we're surrounded by mercenaries."

"And crazy hill folk," Jayne muttered. "Wasn't fast enough. Crazy _gorram _villager shot Mal before I could put a bullet in him."

"Pherson?" Zoë said, blinking in shock.

"Yeah," Jayne said. Everyone looked up at him, and even Inara pulled her eyes away from the infirmary. "Mal pissed him off something fierce, but weren't expected he'd go murderin' for it."

"That's insane," Inara said, confusion evident in her voice and face. "Pherson wouldn't have done that."

"Yeah, tell that to Mal," Jayne grumbled.

"There should have been some warning," Kaylee said. "Someone would see that coming, like River or-"

Zoë jerked as if slapped, a sudden realization hitting her. She looked around the room, and saw that, every one of Serenity's crew was visible, except Wash and one other.

"Where's River?" she asked.

There was a moment of silence, which was punctuated by a sharp breath from Jayne.

"Who?" Monty asked.

"Girl," Jayne said. "Teens, dark brown hair, no meat on her, had a sword."

"Oh, her," Monty said. "Saw her outside the train. Ran past her. I think she was with a kid."

A sudden, fierce, and very un-Christian curse escaped Book's lips, and everyone turned to him. He bore an expression of belated realization and apprehension, and he stepped toward Monty.

"Captain," he said, voice clear and dead serious. "What child?"

"Little girl, black hair, had a bandage on her arm," Monty replied. "The other girl, River, seemed kinda distracted, maybe. Was holding her hand." He paused. "Why?"

"Katie?" Zoë said, confused again, but Book's reaction was far more telling. The Shepherd took a step back, and Zoë saw honest-to-God horror on the old man's face, the kind of thing that only came from a revelation that shook a man to their very bones.

"Merciful Son," he breathed. "I . . . understand. Dear Lord."

"What?" Kaylee asked. "What's going on?"

"We don't have much time," Book said, looking back up, a sudden frantic energy to his movements. "We need to know about all transport out of this town. Any routes they might have taken. They couldn't have gotten far."

"Preacher," Zoë said, cutting in. "What the hell are you-"

"We don't have time," Book said. "Zoë, please, _trust me_. We have to find them, _both_ of them, before its too late."

"Wait, what the hell is goin' on?" Jayne demanded, pushing into the conversation.

"River's been taken," Book said. "By the same person that the mercenaries were after. I'll explain later, but we _have _to find them. _Now_."

"Jayne," Zoë said, voice cutting in. It was low but heavy with authority. "You and Monty check the station. See any ways she could have gotten out. Preacher, you 'an Kaylee get upstairs with Wash, find out what you can on the radios and scanners. _Dong ma_?"

"Right," Jayne said. Monty glanced to Mal, scowled, and nodded.

"I'll get my folks to help out, Zoë," he promised.

"Thanks, Monty," she said, and the hefty giant and their burly mercenary rumbled out of the room. Kaylee hesitated for only a moment before she followed Book as the old man hurried up the stairs to the bridge.

"What about me?" Inara asked. Zoë glanced into the infirmary, and exhaled quietly.

"I'm going with Monty and Jayne," she said. "I think . . . it would be better if you stayed here. In case."

The Companion nodded solemnly, and Zoë made a note to not tell her about the wetness she saw in Inara's eyes.

A few seconds later, the acting-captain was following Monty and Jayne outside, still not sure what the hell was going on, but a cold knot of worry worked its way into her gut.

Where had River and Katie gone?

* * *

"It's a bust," Jayne reported to Zoë an hour later, outside the infirmary. "Twenty different ways out of that station that we saw, and enough transport that she could have grabbed anything and ran."

Zoë nodded grimly and looked to Wash.

"Nothing airborne or on scanners," he said, shaking his head, looking dead tired already. "Didn't see any groundcars, but in these canyons, I can't track 'em." He shrugged, managing to inject a healthy amount of frustration into the gesture.

"So, what now?" Kaylee asked, still deeply worried if her tone was any indication.

As if in response, the infirmary door opened, and Simon emerged, looking weary but resolute.

"Good news, Doc?" Zoë asked, and he nodded.

"I've stopped the bleeding and removed all the shot pellets," he said. "He's still unconscious from the head wound. I'll need to do a detailed scan to be sure there was no long-term brain damage. But he's stable."

"Good," Zoë said, and braced herself. Simon caught her visible bracing, and wary caution entered his stance. He glanced around the room, and saw the worry and apprehension on the rest of the crew, where there should have been relief.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

Zoë winced inwardly, preparing herself, and then told him in short, terse sentences, about River's disappearance. He took it about as well as expected.

"She's _WHAT_?" he practically screamed, and Jayne slid in behind him, ready to grab Simon if need be.

It took a few minutes to calm Simon down, with Inara and Kaylee pulling him aside to talk to him until that clinical detachment could settle back in over him.

"Okay," Simon said a few minutes later, arms crossed, eyes remote and cold and distant, like he got while plotting grand larceny or preparing a paralytic to inject into someone he didn't like. "She's missing, and we think this girl is behind it?"

"I'm not sure," Zoë said, and looked to Book. "Preacher?"

All eyes turned to Book, and he stood still, eyes closed. He visibly collected himself, and Zoë understood why. He'd been hiding the secrets of that little strip of memory crystal from them for all these months, and he was coming to terms with bringing that secret into the open.

"Odd, that the Shepherd makes a confession," he finally said, his words slow and clear. "I suppose it started about six months ago. River had a breakdown on the bridge."

"I remember," Wash said, nodding.

"Yes," Book said. "That incident made me decide to . . . tap a resource I'd been reluctant to look into. A friend, who specialized in recovering data. I asked him to look into the Academy that . . . altered River. Five months ago, he brought me his results, and we met on Persephone."

Wheels turned, and Simon's eyes narrowed.

"Those men," he said. "The ones chasing us in the crowd. They were after you."

"They were after my friend, and by association, me," Book said, words quiet. "I'm . . . truly sorry you all became involved. My friend warned me that the data we recovered could start a new war, and the Alliance sent people to recover it. They were the ones who attacked us."

"People died," Simon said. It wasn't an accusation, just an observation.

"Yes," Book said, voice shaking. "Including my friend. They killed him to silence him."

A few moments of quiet followed.

"What did you find?" Inara asked.

Book reached into his pocket and took out the slim needle of memory crystal.

"Files," he said. "Audio recordings, text, diagrams, medical information. I've been decrypting the files, but its slow going, and many are corrupted, but what I've found is deeply disturbing."

"Like what?" Jayne asked.

He told them, and they listened as he laid out his findings thus far. How the Academy had four types of psychics they were investigating: Kinetics, Empaths, Blanks, and Inducers. How he'd learned about their tests, how they'd treated the children, how they'd spoken on using them as living weapons, how they'd suffered a horrible attrition rate.

He told them how he'd learned of Inducer One-One-Nine, and how she was a girl not out of her teens, by the name of Wade. How Doctor Kondraki had been driven insane by the Inducer and helped her escape, how he and Mal had found Kondraki's corpse, and only just put the pieces together before the mercenaries had stormed the train.

He laid out the theory: that Kondraki had taken the girl out here, probably to hide her while under her control, using the Blue Sun lab as cover. That she'd gone psychotic and forced the villagers to kill everyone in the lab, and tried to cover it up, but had botched it and tipped off the people hunting her, who sent the Talon mercenaries after her. Forthill must have figured out what was happening after the villagers fled to the abbey, but when he tried to send a message, the Inducer had him killed.

And when he finished, stunned silence greeted him, eventually broken by Jayne.

"Well, damn."

He did an admirable job echoing everyone else's thoughts.

"You believe that one of these . . . Inducers has River?" Simon asked, and Book nodded.

"It makes sense," Zoë said, her words quiet and dark. The others looked to her, and noted that cold detachment she usually picked up right before she was about to shoot a man between the eyes. "The villagers were acting oddly. If Book's right, then that may be why Pherson went crazy and shot Mal."

"We were heading to the back of the train," Jayne added, pacing. "Girl musta been there. Had him go at us to keep us from walking in on 'em."

"And this psychic person was a _kid_?" Wash asked.

"Monty said it was a nine-year-old girl," Zoë replied, voice still cold as the void. "Black hair, bandage on one arm."

"Zoë," Inara said, tone quietly cautious. "I saw you with her."

"Katie," Zoë said, meeting Inara's gaze. "Kathryn Wade." Her eyes flicked away from the Companion. "Should have seen it."

"Hon, there was no way you could know," Wash said, putting a hand to her shoulder. She looked back up at him, and for a moment Wash almost recoiled, but he was made of sterner stuff than Zoë's self-recriminating glare. He was going to keep comforting her dammit, and after a moment he saw her icy glare melt, just a tiny bit.

"We're going after 'em, though, right?" Kaylee said.

"Damned right," Jayne and Simon said at the same time. They spared a half-second glance at each other.

"We don't know where she took River," Inara said. "Or why."

"She's a kid," Zoë said. The rest of the crew looked to her again, and saw she had one hand absently rubbing her swollen stomach - something most of them had forgotten about in all the violence and confusion. "She wants what a kid wants."

"Safety," Simon cut in. "Security. Comfort."

"That was what she wanted from me," Zoë said, tone still icy and dangerous.

"She and River came from the same place," Simon continued. "It was only natural she'd try to convince River to protect her."

"The train," Jayne added, looking up. "That was why they all went with us on the train without much fuss. _Gorram_ girl wanted us on the train to get her outta there."

"But she won't be safe anywhere on this moon," Kaylee said. "Alliance is everywhere. Got a whole navy up in orbit, which means . . . ."

"Offworld," Zoë said, nodding. "Closest spaceport is the one we landed at. That's where they're headed. Wash?"

"I'll have us up in five," the pilot replied, bounding to his feet. Book shook his head as Wash pounded up the steps.

"River's smart enough to know we'd figure this out," he said.

"Yeah," Zoë replied. "But River's not making the choices here, is she?"

* * *

A few minutes later, after checking on Mal, Zoë felt the engines powering back up. She climbed up to the bridge and walked in to find Wash at his usual station. In the copilot's chair was Book, and the Shepherd was speaking quietly into a headset. She glanced at Wash, and gestured with her head, to which he shrugged.

"He took a moment on the Cortex," Wash said quietly as she moved up next to him. "Said there was a loose end needed to be taken care of while he was thinking about it."

The radio chirped, and Washed reached up to flick it on after checking the ID. Monty's face appeared on the screen.

"Zoë," he said. "You guys liftin'?"

"Yeah," she replied, taking up a headset and putting it on. Wash followed suit. "We think we know where they're heading." She gave him the short version of what they'd figured out, leaving out the bits about psychics and River being mind-controlled - which meant she left out most of it.

"Way we figure," she added, "They've got a groundcar, probably take them a day or so to get to the spaceport. We'll beat 'em there."

"Might not," Monty replied. "Checked the Cortex a few minutes ago. Vehicle theft was reported about twenty klicks north of here. Two girls matching yours flagged and hijacked an aircar. They'll beat you there, best estimate."

A snarl in Mandarin rolled out of Wash's mouth, and Zoë agreed.

"Then we'll have to move fast," she said. "Monty, one more thing. Those folks with us on the train-"

"We got 'em, don't worry," Monty said. Zoë blinked in surprise, and the bearded giant nodded. "I know a safe place for 'em. We're getting 'em loaded onboard."

"Monty, we can pay you for the trouble-"

"Like hell you will," the giant snarled. "Don't need to be paid to be kind. You find your kids and get Mal patched up. We'll see you in the worlds."

"Goodbye, Monty," Zoë added. "Stay safe."

"Like hell," the giant said, and closed the link.

She glanced to Book, to see he'd taken off the headset, and was sitting back in his chair. He slipped something into his pocket - it took Zoë a second to realize it was his old ID.

"Preacher?" she asked, and the ship shuddered as Wash took it up into the air.

"Loose ends," Book replied quietly, and then faintly smiled. "And one that will be tied up with quite a bit of irony."

"Ain't much to be smiling about here, Preacher," Zoë replied, and Book nodded, face hardening into seriousness.

"I know," he said. "But there was something I couldn't ignore, in my own conscience. Thankfully, Jayne told me about it."

"Told you about what?" Wash asked, confused.

* * *

"Get it all packed up!" Major Lyons bellowed as he marched through the base. All around him, black-armored men and women were hurrying to take down the small town's worth of prefabricated structures that made up the Talons' base of operations. They moved faster as the acing commander of the company stalked through the base, the anger in his shouts making them jump to action.

Lyons had a reason to be angry. All of their tactical aircraft were gone, shot down when the Commander had taken them out into the field. He still had a few heavy-duty transports, which were being loaded with their gear and the broken-down structures, but it was taking too long to load them up.

Lyons knew that if this contract hadn't worked out, then they would need to get offworld. Technically, their contractors had been affiliated with the Alliance, but he'd been in the business long enough to know "technical" affiliations meant "secret" and when a contractor was secret, then they wouldn't hesitate to hang a mercenary group out to dry if they were exposed - especially after bloody operations.

And the Talons were soaked in blood from this operation.

The second word had come back that Bascjo was dead and the targets had escaped, he'd begun evacuation procedures for the remaining three-hundred-odd troops in the company. They'd be packed up and gone in three hours.

"Major!" called one of the officers, Captain Rene. Lyons stopped to address the officer, though not without bellowing a few more orders.

"What is it, Captain?" he asked.

"Sir, are we packing up the habs with the precious cargo in them?" he asked, gesturing toward two large, cylindrical habitats in the middle of the camp.

"No," Lyons said. "We're leaving them. The client will pick them up once we signal them." He didn't mention that he hoped to hell he'd never be around when they did. He didn't want to deal with those freaky men and those goddamn blue gloves.

He hoped they'd found whatever it was that the bastards were looking for in the village. Lyons had done some unsavory stuff in his time, but he didn't know what they wanted with what was in either habitat, and didn't want to find out.

"Get the rest loaded," Lyons added. "I want out of here before . . . ."

He trailed off, blinking, and heard a familiar noise. He looked up at the whining sound, and a few seconds later, he saw distant objects in the sky, rapidly approaching: Alliance gunships, black against the blue sky, followed by heavy transports.

"Shit," Lyons breathed. He debated for a moment as to what they should do, and then turned to Rene. They had to destroy the evidence.

"Get the incendiaries!" he started to order, but in that time there was a sudden flare of light, and a volley of rockets streaked past the Talon encampment. They exploded a hundred meters away, but the detonation shook the base and made everyone duck for cover or halt in place.

Seconds later, four Alliance gunships swept in over the encampment, escorting four fat-bellied transports. None of the Talons raised a weapon; the warning shots from the rockets had made it very clear who enjoyed aerial superiority here.

The transports landed at four corners around the base, and each of them disgorged fifty Alliance soldiers in full gear. They pounded down the lowering ramps, laser and charge-shot guns in hand, heavy body armor making them look like machines as they encircled the encampment. Each of the transports also unloaded a pair of armored infantry fighting vehicles, the topside railguns sweeping down as they rumbled off the heavy transports.

The Alliance soldiers began to advance into the encampment, ordering the Talons to stand down. More than half of the mercenaries hadn't been armed, and those that were complied, setting their weapons aside.

"What's going on here?" Lyons demanded, striding toward the lead group of Alliance soldiers, a quintet of troops leading an officer - a Captain. Lyons could only tell who the officer was because of a black rank insignia on his armor's neck plating.

"Are you in charge here?" demanded the captain.

"Yes," Lyons said. "Major Lyons, Talon Company. What the hell is going on here? We're here under Alliance peacekeeping contract, I demand-"

"Major Lyons, I am Captain Kyle, Army Intelligence," he said. "We're here to conduct an inspection." The visored helmet swept across the base, and stopped at the two habitats in the center of the compound. "Lieutenant Lowry, proceed."

"Sir," replied the fireteam leader.

"This is ridiculous," Lyons demanded. "You have no grounds to-"

"We received a notification from a vermillion-level source that this base was the site of illegal activities," Kyle replied, turning to Lyons. "Major, you and yours will stand down or I will have every man and woman in this compound arrested."

Lyons balled up his fists, cursing for a few seconds at this needless delay. He stood aside and let the captain pass, and watched as more Alliance troops moved by, checking the halfway deconstructed buildings. After a minute, he glanced to where the fireteam and Kyle had been headed.

His heart hit the back of his throat.

The fireteam was opening the doors on the center habitats.

"Talons!" Lyons yelled, panic flooding through him. He keyed his personal radio and reached for his sidearm. "Talons, open fire on the-"

Two nearby Alliance soldiers raised their weapons and opened up on him before his weapon cleared its holster. Lyons was speared by laser beams and dropped to the dirt. There was a sudden sporadic storm of gunfire, and seventeen other Talon mercenaries were killed just as quickly as they tried to grab weapons. The rest threw up their arms in surrender, or were forced to the ground by the Alliance troops in short order. It was a brief and frantic moment of chaos, but the base quieted quickly.

Ten minutes after the base was secured, Captain Kyle watched as Lieutenant Lowry's team returned tot heir task finished unlocking the habitat doors, and could only stare.

Forty malnourished, dirt-streaked faces peered back at him, none of them older than twelve. The children were dressed in the dirty remnants of whatever clothes they'd been wearing when they were taken, and all of them wore child-sized manacles on their wrists.

Kyle thought he was about to throw up at that sight.

"Medical," he said after a second. "Get me some medics here, now! Get those restraints off, ASAP! And keep those sacks of _go se _covered!"

He stepped back as the team hurried into the room to help the frightened children, and he shuddered in horror.

It took Kyle several minutes to collect himself, while the medics and an engineering team arrived to help free the children. Once he recovered, he went to the other habitat and unlocked the door.

The interior was filled with line after line of cryo coffins. He didn't need to ask what was inside; they were all too small for adults.

Kyle stepped back outside, and angrily called up headquarters, telling them he needed a military police and transport detail.

The captain glanced to Lyons' corpse, and shook his head. He didn't know what these mercenaries had been wanting to do with those children, but he was going to damned well make sure that both the victims and the criminals were taken care of.

And if it weren't for that anonymous tip-off he'd gotten from a verified vermillion-level source, they never would have known this atrocity was taking place.

* * *

_Serenity_ kept low to the ground, dodging radar until they reached one of the established free flight zones over Victoria and Wash could take the ship back in toward Olivet. There was a lot of air traffic coming and going, and they couldn't make out any particular ship with a giant glowing sign on top that read "_two crazy psychics here_."

"Huh," Wash said. The rest of the crew was crowded in the cockpit behind him, save Inara, who was watching Mal. "Flight speed on that aircar that was stolen means they may have beaten us here, but not by much."

"It'll take 'em time to get a ship," Jayne said.

"Not Katie," Zoë replied, and he grunted. Zoë didn't say anything, but ever since Book had explained to them about the Inducer's mind-warping powers, Jayne had been acting distant - or at least, more distant than Jayne usually was.

"They'll want transport," Book said. "Something that'll guarantee anonymity. Probably a bulk ship."

"That's assuming the girl thinks smart, and not like a crazy kid," Wash replied.

"The doctor took her out on one," Book replied. "At least, that's the most reasonable assumption. She'll want to take something similar to escape."

"There's four bulk transports docked at Olivet," Kaylee piped in from the copilot's chair. "Three carrying passengers, but only one with anonymous listings. The _Brutus, _captain Daniel Gravane."

"She'll be on that one," Zoë said. "Wash, find their Cortex address and hail them."

"And tell 'em what?"

"Make something up, we just need to-"

"Hold on," Kaylee said. She looked over the display, brow furrowing. "That's funny. Got a flash on the Cortex. The Brutus's captain and crew were . . ." she sat back, mouth dropping open. "They were just killed in a bar outside the spaceport."

"What happened?" Zoë asked.

"Uh, says here . . ." she shook her head. "They just started shooting at a group of Alliance soldiers. News says they were screaming and yelling like they were going crazy."

"Like Pherson was," Jayne snarled.

"Zoë," Wash added. "I found 'em. But . . . ."

"But what?" Zoë asked, getting annoyed by all the trailing pauses. Wash pointed to the data display, showing a marked object rising up through the atmosphere, and getting smaller every moment.

"They're in orbit," he said. "Unless the _Brutus_ is crewed by zombies, there's no way it should be flying."

"Get after them," Zoë ordered, and he nodded, taking _Serenity_ up into the sky.

* * *

Cleaning up after the battle was going to be a nightmare, which was why Monty's crew didn't stick around for it. Instead, they hurried to get the survivors on board and situated on the ship, and lifted off. For the most part, the refugees - villager and priest alike - were moving in a daze, as if they'd just woken up from a deep sleep, and didn't argue with Monty's crew as they ushered them aboard.

Once his heavy freighter lifted off, he set course for Olivet to restock supplies. He glanced around the cargo bay, noting the crew, and frowned at the new guy who they'd just hired on to help handle the cargo. A pretty-looking fellow who spoke with a funny accent named Zev, if he recalled the name right. They'd been in a hurry to leave and the guy seemed in a hurry to get out of town with nothing but the shirt on his back, so Monty taken him on, only now he was making eyes at some of the womenfolk on his crew. Might have been a mistake hiring him.

Once they were airborne, Monty went up to the crew deck and into his quarters. His room was a riot of random junk he'd picked up, though like the unkempt man himself, there was a reasonable order to it that only took a few seconds for him to sort through. Monty poked around on his desk, knocking aside some random books and a half-assembled gun, and found what he was looking for: his personal Cortex connection. He sat down and activated the device, and started typing a message as soon as he'd accessed the Cortex.

Fifteen minutes later, he pocketed the device and left the chaotic, jumbled room, and went back to work on the ship.

Twenty minutes after sending the message, Monty was helping secure the rest of the cargo and making sure the survivors were as comfortable as they could be under their conditions, when the device chirped in his pocket. He excused himself and went to a quiet corner of the ship, and inserted an earpiece.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"_You're certain this is correct?" _the voice on the other end asked.

"Hello to you too," Monty replied. "Yeah, its correct. Saw it myself, plain as day."

_"Both of them," _the man replied. _"Together?"_

"Yep," Monty confirmed.

A couple of seconds' silence passed.

_"What of the survivors?"_

"I'll need a place to put them," Monty said.

_"I'll forward coordinates, but you had best get off-world soon. The charter won't protect you from close scrutiny."_

"Hey, I'm new at this smuggling thing," Monty replied, lacing his words with enough sarcasm to kill a shark. "Got anymore tips for me?"

_"You have confirmed Reynolds is down?"_

"Alive, but hurt bad," Monty replied. "They've got him, and their doctor is good."

_"Yes, I know," _the man on the other end replied. _"Is there any other information?"_

"No. Look, I did what you asked," Monty said. "Kept an eye on the situation. I didn't want it to end up this way."

_"Neither did I," _the man replied. _"Reynolds' intervention was unexpected. This complicates matters."_ There was a pause. _"Payment is being wired, and coordinates to take the refugees are being sent. We'll take care of them."_

"What about Mal and his crew?" Monty demanded.

_"We shall take care of them, as well," _the man replied.

"Yeah, you better," Monty grunted, anger injecting itself into his tone.

_"We'll be in touch," _the voice finished, and closed the connection. Monty yanked the earpiece out, snarling under his breath, and started up the corridor.

Whoever this "Nemo" guy was, he was doing a fine job pissing Monty off, even if he did pay well.

* * *

They tracked the _Brutus_ for an hour out from Victoria, steadily gaining on the ship before the transport suddenly came to a dead halt and hung in space. A few minutes later the ship powered down completely.

Wash brought _Serenity_ in close, scanning the vessel with the Firefly's modest sensor suite, but he didn't find anything odd, save for the lack of any reactor output. The ship was dead in the water.

They docked with the bulk transport, and Zoë, Jayne, and Simon suited up. They stepped across the umbilical onto the silent desks, flashlights sweeping across blank gunmetal surfaces and an empty cargo bay. With the reactor offline, there was no gravity, so they used magnetic boots to move through the ship, weapons ready.

Nothing emerged to greet them. They saw no signs of activity, and their suits' sensors didn't pick up a hint of thermal activity.

"No one's here," Jayne muttered, voice tight and frustrated.

"Or she doesn't want us to see her here," Zoë replied quietly.

A twenty-minute sweep ended at the bridge, and they found the consoles still active. Zoë checked them, and cursed.

"Autopilot," she muttered. Jayne cursed quietly, smacking a fist against one of the bridge walls. Simon closed his eyes, fear for his sister returning, mixed with frustration. On the tail end of that, however, the analytical side of his brain spoke up.

"They knew we'd follow this ship," Simon said. He turned to Zoë, and expected to see her lash out at something nearby. He himself felt the angry, frustrated urge himself, and knew Mal would have almost reflexively broken something before he regained his cool. Zoë didn't; unlike Mal, she simply straightened, and he saw cold, blank anger in her eyes, behind her suit's faceplate.

"Decoy. Back to the ship," she ordered, and immediately moved off toward the cargo bay. Simon and Jayne lumbered after her, and heard Zoë radio ahead.

As they hurried back to the ship, Simon felt a fluttery panic start to work its way through him, an old sensation that hadn't felt for years. The cold side of his mind told him that he'd been suppressing it, first with anger, but then with a need to remain rational and straightforward while Mal was in need of attention and they were pursuing.

And now that they had nothing, no immediate leads, no information, nothing at all to go on, that old terror was resurging, the same terror he'd felt when he'd decoded River's message nearly four years ago.

He had lost River.

As he stepped back into _Serenity_'s cargo bay, Simon fought with and practically tore his helmet off.

"We have to find her," he said, and he could hear the worried fear in his own voice. It had taken three hours for the weight of that realization to hit him, but now the full emotional impact of the fact that _River is missing and I can't _find her was slamming into him at full force.

"Zoë, she's missing and we have to find her," he said, words coming out in frantic, uncharacteristic panic that the doctor in him was appalled to hear. Zoë turned to him, calmly removing her helmet, and her eyes widened just a hair as she realized what was happening to Simon.

"She's out there and that _person_ is doing things to her, and we need to fi-"

"Doc," Zoë said, reaching out to grab his shoulder. He barely felt it through the heavy fabric.

"-nd her and bring her back before-"

"Doctor Tam!" Zoë snapped, and pure military authority resounded in her voice that made him come to a complete halt. Her eyes fixed his, resolute and determined.

"We're going after them," she said, and for an instant, he heard Mal's voice mixed with hers, the same tone he'd experienced when they were going after Niska's ship. "We're going to bring her home."

It took Simon a moment to respond, and he nodded. Zoë pulled her hand away and nodded to the far side of the cargo bay.

"See to the Captain," she ordered, and started to stalk across the bay.

" . . . okay," Simon said after a few seconds. He started to take off the suit, but paused when he noticed Jayne still looming nearby, distracted. The mercenary glanced to Simon when he realized the Doctor was looking at him. Jayne grunted and nodded to Simon.

"We find 'em," Jayne muttered, tone dark and almost . . . pained? "Best be ready. Might have to put a bullet into one of 'em."

Cold fear rolled through Simon at those words, made worse by the emotion in them. The doctor would have expected Jayne to deliver that line matter-of-fact, but he seemed honestly torn up about the idea.

"It won't come to that," Simon said, and was surprised at the determination in his voice. Jayne met his eyes, and for the first time in his memory, Simon saw worry in the mercenary's dark blue gaze.

"Damn well better make sure it don't," he rumbled, and turned to walk away. Simon watched him leave, and then took a low, heavy breath.

_It won't come to that, _he swore.

* * *

The bunk was dark but warm. She kept the lights out, because the darkness would help silhouette anyone entering the room.

She _listened_ to the engines rumble, distant and powerful, and her fingers drummed along the metal of the little bunk. People moved _to and fro_, all throughout the bulk transport, none of them caring about the two passengers resting quietly in the anonymous bunk on the seventh level of the ship.

She lay back on the bed, head on the lumpy pillow, a warm body curled up beside her. Her free hand tapped the wooden sheath of Laertes, and she glanced at the blade. The lock was closed around the hilt so she couldn't draw it.

Why had she done that?

_-because you know something is wrong and sheathed the blade to keep safe-_

The little girl beside her muttered something quietly, and the thought _broke up_ like sand in the ocean. She blinked and tried to remember, tried to understand what she'd been thinking of, but it faded away, replaced by quiet contentment. _Safety_ oozed up and down her like warm molasses.

She kept her arm around the slumbering girl at her side, and watched the door until warm drowsiness embraced her.

River drifted off to sleep, Katie curled up beside her and her blade in hand, safe in the darkness.

* * *

_**Author's Notes: **_This brings a close to the "Charity" arc. If this were a conventional TV series, this would have ended with a big **_"To Be Continued..."_** but its not, so, yeah.

As I've already noted, this arc was heavily focused on Zoe. Zoe was and still is pregnant, but you may have noted that I didn't draw a lot of attention to that in this arc; that was deliberate. I wanted to explore different aspects of the maternal identity, which is why we saw Zoe in so many different situations in this arc; a protector, a caretaker, a friend and confidante, and when necessary, a leader. Of course, that sounds really pretentious when I type it out, but whatever.

As a side note, I was originally planning on having River and Katie stow away on Monty's ship, but that didn't work out for plotting purposes.

The next story arc will deal with the aftermath of the events in this arc (particularly the crew really coming to grips with the idea that Katie's been playing basketball with their brains) as well as the crew hunting down River and Katie to save her. Its probably not going to be as long as this arc was, but that just means I need to condense the intensity.

Until next chapter . . . .


	59. Hunt: Prologue: Tracking

_**Hunt: Prologue: Tracking**_

His hands reached across the table a bit too quick, and slapped against the stack of datapads piled up haphazardly - so oddly haphazardly - on one corner. They fell over, clattering to the metal deck, and he froze at the noise. His eyes tracked down to the scattered metal and plastic displays.

Jory Coll half snarled, half-sighed a curse, and sat back, closing his eyes tight. A moment later, he began to sob.

The spilled pads were like his whole life in the last few years in microcosm, and looking at the mess that resulted from his own ineptitude made him almost physically ill. It was just another confirmation of how _gorram_ worthless he was. The last few days had just been the final proof that he needed as to how useless his entire life had been.

Jory opened his eyes after a moment. He reached for the amber-colored drink, the glass shaking in one hand as the other kept typing. The words were blurring in Jory's mind and eyes, but he kept working on them, determined to get this one thing right before it ended.

He downed the liquor, tasting the sweet, burning sensation as it rolled down his throat, and sighed. He wiped his eyes, straightening himself, and continued typing into the datapad. He watched the words with a deep-seated resignation, and something in the back of his mind told him to stop, to get up, to go to the comms terminal in the next room on his bunk on the passenger ship, and call his wife. His sister. His parents.

That voice was tiny and distant, crushed under the weight of how badly he'd failed.

It had taken him five years to get through grad school, and he's gotten his job as a vendor just barely. He'd come to realize in the last few days that his boss had hired him out of pity, not out of skill. They sent him on these long sales jobs because they needed someone to do the _go se _work on the outer worlds where they couldn't teleconference.

Jory was useless in the grand scheme of things. He'd never get promoted, he'd never amount to anything but a gopher for the higher-ups in his meager division of Blue Sun.

There was no _gorram_ point to it anymore.

That realization, settling in over the last three days on another seven-month-long sales cruise was frightening, but also liberating. It gave him the freedom to make the only choice that really mattered anymore.

He had no money, his family disliked him, his wife was apparently cheating on him, he had no kids - and never would, he suspected a couple days ago - and he had no prospects for his future.

He had nothing.

Jory Coll finished typing out the last note, and read over it, trying to keep from breaking down in tears. He'd already cried so much in the last couple of days as each realization sunk in, but now, at the very end, at the point where he understood he was nothing whatsoever, Jory was on the verge of a paralyzing breakdown. His hands were still but unresponsive, his body was going rigid, and part of him was suddenly crying out that no, he shouldn't do this, that things could get better.

It was a chaotic, irrational yet entirely natural moment, but as he sat there, the voice telling him that he should live and talk to his family began to fade.

_What good would it do? _he asked himself.

The vendor turned in his chair, hands on his knees, caught somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and nodded to the other person in the room.

Steel reached out toward him, sharp and cold, and he took the blade in hand from little fingers behind dark eyes.

He'd been surprised when he first saw her, and then confused - confused, because she seemed like she'd always been there, that she _belonged_ in his room, staring at him, watching him as he read the letters, as he made his realizations, as he'd drank and sobbed and raged and made the final choice.

Some part of him screamed, distantly, that the girl _didn't_ belong there, but the rest of him drowned it out with more important realizations.

His fingers closed around the knife handle, and he angled it toward his stomach.

Jory Coll let out one last, plaintive sob, and jammed the long blade into his gut.

Dark eyes watched as the Blue Sun worker gasped in pain and tumbled out of his chair to slam onto the floor. The girl stepped around him as his blood pooled on the floor, making sure she didn't step in any of it. After a few minutes, the light in Jory's eyes faded, and he went still.

Little fingers took the datapad containing his suicide note, and the little girl walked across the room, leaving the corpse behind her as she stepped into the main living room of Coll's two-room bunk.

There was crying, coming from a darkened corner of the room, and the little girl walked toward the sobbing figure curled up in the corner. She paused near the incinerator chute and dumped the datapad in there, before continuing to the shivering, weeping girl.

She'd seen worse days. Hair that had been hopelessly tangled a week ago had been washed and combed into wavy strands, and she'd cleaned up to look like a normal eighteen-year-old girl. However, she was still curled up into a fetal position, sobbing and pressing her hands to her temples . . . at least until the dark-eyed child walked up to her, and the pain and fear faded to numbness.

The sobbing subsided after a few seconds, and the girl looked up. Their eyes met for a moment.

"He's dead," River Tam whispered, and the child nodded. River's eyes flicked to the door, then back to the child, and her face suddenly flashed with a white-hot burst of outrage and uncharacteristic anger.

She shot forward, trying to rise, and Laertes swung up like a club at the side of the child's head, the _jian_ still locked in its sheath.

The little girl ducked sideways underneath it, the blow tossing her black hair about, and the child took a step forward, inside River's reach. Her hand shot up and grabbed River's wrist as it passed, and an instant later the anger and violence melted away. River swayed where she half-crouched as her emotions were scrambled.

"He deserved to die," Kathryn Wade whispered, clutching the older girl's wrist tighter. "They all deserved to die for what they did to us."

River closed her eyes, and shook her head. For a moment, a fresh batch of tears began to roll down her cheeks.

"No," she whispered, words harsh and tight.

Kathryn stared up at the older girl, frowning. As young as she was, she understood a resistant mind and what lines some people wouldn't cross. River Tam was willing to kill in self-defense or the defense of others, but she wasn't a murderer. She wouldn't - or couldn't - condone deliberately taking a life like this.

Kathryn could change that, but twisting a mind against itself like that could cause damage, especially to so fragile a psyche. Jory had taken days to break into suicide, after all, and it had taken a very depressed, grieving teenager who'd lost his family to follow and eliminate Forthill. The men who'd eliminated the Blue Sun lab had been mostly insane by the time she'd finished with them, and she'd had to make them disappear as well.

River was too useful, too protective, too fragile, and too . . . too much like Kathryn for her to break her.

But Kathryn could wait. Kathryn could be subtle. Just like Kondraki, River would come around to her way of thinking. It would just take time.

"We need to go back to our bunks," Kathryn said, and River nodded, lowering the sheathed blade. She straightened her clothes, and with one hand holding Katie's, they stepped out into the tight corridors of the bulk passenger ship and started back to the dark, safe bunk they had in the lower decks.

They needed to find someplace safe. Someplace distant and quiet, where Katie could work on turning River and break down the mental taboos against murder and vengeance.

Then, they could start hunting, and get payback. Kondraki, the lab workers, and Jory Coll were just the first.

They _all _deserved to die.

* * *

The last week couldn't have been worse for Lieutenant Overton, head of security on the passenger liner _Maoiengo_. Normally he had to deal with theft and some violence, considering his liner was mostly there to ferry people around the Kalidesa system. Lots of lower-class people needed to move around, and his ship carried over a thousand at a time. They invariably brought trouble with them, but he didn't usually have to deal with death - muggings and theft, but rarely murder, assault, or suicide.

_Usually_ was the operative word. Five days ago, that had changed, and now he was inundated with people asking him questions, mostly passengers and his superiors, as he tried to figure out what was going on.

The woman entering his office, however, was the third person to ask to speak to him in the last couple of days who was from off-ship. The _Maoiengo_ had docked at a moon whose name he couldn't remember and was offloading passengers, when he'd gotten word the woman wanted to meet with him and ask the head of security some questions.

Normally, he would have handed it off to one of his subordinates, but Overton knew you didn't do that sort of thing to a registered Companion.

"Come in, Miss Serra," he said, and held out a chair for her, as all polite men did around Companions. The dark-haired woman seemed to float into the room, and he caught a whiff of her perfume, and was momentarily struck at her elegant poise and beauty. It took Overton a second to unscramble his brain as she nodded.

"Thank you, Lieutenant," she said, sitting down in the chair. He circled around his desk and sat down himself.

"What can I do for you?" he asked, noting that this meeting was already turning out a lot more pleasant than the last time someone off-ship had come in to ask him questions.

"I'm looking for someone," Inara Serra said, sitting at comfortable ease in the chair.

"One of the dependents living at one of our temples has gone missing. A teenage girl. We think she ran away, and we're trying to find her and bring her home."

"You think she might be here?" the Lieutenant asked, and Inara nodded. Worry flickered across her face.

"We believe she purchased a ticket on the moon Victoria," she explained. "But we're not certain. You understand, we're not police of anything of the sort. We're just guardians who are worried about her."

"There a reason she ran away?" Overton asked, curious as to why the Companion's Guild would send a registered Companion out to look for a wayward child.

"The girl in question is . . . mentally unstable," Inara said, and that worry returned, striking a bit of unease in Overton's gut. "We've been providing her therapy and treatment, but she hasn't been using her medication recently, and she disappeared some weeks ago. We're deeply concerned about what she might do if left unsupervised."

"I understand," Overton said, nodding. Companion temples, from what he knew, were places of healing, both mentally and physically. It made sense that they would be worried about a child getting loose, especially if they were taking care of her. "Can you give me a description?"

"She is young, in her late teens," Inara said. "Dark brown hair, brown eyes, light skin, maybe about ninety pounds."

Overton frowned at that description, and straightened his shoulders.

"I don't recall anyone of that description," he said. "You have to understand, I'm entirely willing to help you, but we take on thousands of people at every stop, and the last world we were at, Victoria, saw an influx of families fleeing the fighting and chaos. We have a lot of children and teenagers on board, and I can't keep track of them all."

Inara stared back, and nodded after a moment. Overton hated to not be helpful, but that was the truth, even if it caused the Companion obvious distress.

"I see," she said. "Nothing strange or unusual happened on the ship? She may have caused trouble with someone. She . . . has a tendency to do that."

"There was a suicide a few days ago," Overton admitted, and shrugged. "But it doesn't appear to have any connection to anything."

"A suicide?" the Companion said, her mouth opening in surprise. "Oh, my. What happened?"

"A passenger, a Mr. Coll, killed himself," Overton said. "At least, that's what it looked like. The injury was self-inflicted, the ship's doctor confirmed it. No signs of defensive wounds or anything of the sort, but we didn't find any notes or anything, which was odd." Overton shrugged. "No evidence we could find of foul play, though. Guy was unremarkable, just a traveling vendor for Blue Sun."

"I see," Inara replied, looking down at the floor. "That poor man."

"Do you have a picture of the girl?" Overton asked, to which Inara shook her head.

"We don't unfortunately," she said. "The dependent was very new." She fronwed. "Was there anywhere you might have stopped on the way here? I worry that she might have gotten off the ship."

"A couple of days ago, right after the suicide, we stopped at Sirrocco Station. Just for refueling. Not a good place to linger, you understand."

"Absolutely," the Companion nodded. Sirrocco had a reputation, after all, as the sort of place people went to either hide or get killed.

Overton looked back down at his datapad on the table, and for a moment, he considered adding who else had asked about Sirrocco. His fingers shivered for a moment at the thought, and he inwardly shook his head. No, there was no way that those two had anything to do with the Companion Guild's search.

Inara was staring at him, eyes intent and curious, yet not probing. He straightened again.

"Without a picture, I'm afraid I can't really help you," he said, shrugging.

"Is it possible she could have gotten off at any point?" Inara asked, to which Overton shook his head.

"No shuttles launched, and we only docked at Sirrocco shortly. No one was reported to have gotten off there."

"I see," she said, nodding. "Well, then." She began to rise. "Thank you for your help, lieutenant."

He nodded, and rose after her to open the door – one of those old-style sliding doors that required someone to push it open. She stepped past him, and he caught another whiff of her perfume, and the Companion gave him a smile and a quiet whisper of thanks. He watched her walk down the corridor, and before he could think against it, he spoke up.

"Look, ah," he said, and Inara paused. Overton glanced back inside his office, and then back to the distractingly-lovely Companion. "If you were thinking of looking there, I'd advise against going to Sirrocco," he added.

"Why?" Inara asked.

"There were some men here, earlier," he said. "They were looking for a fugitive, and they thought whoever she was might have run to Sirocco when we docked." He exhaled quickly. "They were thinking Coll's death was a murder."

"What sort of men?" Inara asked, her tone perfectly curious and disarming, and she took a long step back toward him.

* * *

She heard the hiss and clank of the docking systems through the ship's hull, and Zoe Washburne, acting-captain of the marginally-decent ship _Serenity_ strode down the catwalk toward the shuttle doors, her husband right behind her.

"You think she had any luck?" Wash asked.

"We're about to find out," Zoe replied. She heard other footsteps in the bay, and glanced down to see Jayne lumbering up the steps.

The doors slid open, and Inara stepped out a moment later. Zoe came to a dead halt. It was rare for her to see Inara obviously distressed, but she clearly was now.

"They're on Sirrocco Station," Inara said almost immediately.

"I know the place," Wash replied. "One day's hard burn from here."

"You sure?" Jayne asked Inara, and she nodded.

"They wouldn't have gotten off at a major station like this one," the Companion said, "And they docked at Sirrocco a day after Jory Coll was killed."

"Suicide?" Zoe asked, and Inara nodded.

"That's what they said," she replied. "Under suspicious circumstances."

"Then it was her," Zoe said, voice dark and low.

"Shepard was right," Jayne said. "Watch the Cortex for people getting killed who work for Blue Sun, leads us right to 'em."

"Good, let's get going," Zoe said, and Wash spun around. They started for the bridge.

"Wait," Inara said, and the two stopped in their tracks. "The man I spoke to mentioned we weren't the first to be interested in Coll's death."

"Whaddya mean?" Jayne asked. "Feds?"

"No," Inara said, and Zoe saw the distress intensify on the Companion's face. "There were two men who arrived a couple of days after Coll was killed. He said they were convinced it was a murder, and he told them about Sirrocco Station."

Zoe felt her heart lock up in her chest.

"What kind of men?" she asked.

"They were wearing black suits," Inara said. "And they wore what he said appeared to be blue gloves."

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_ This episode is a continuation and resolution of the events of the "Charity" episode. Both fortunately and unfortunately, this is probably going to be the shortest episode thus far in the series - fortunately for the reader because there won't be as many sadistic cliffhangers and it won't take me months to get finished, but unfortunately for me because I won't be stringing the audience along for months on end. :p

Until next chapter . . . .


	60. Chapter One: Sirocco

_**Chapter One: Sirocco**_

Noise and **stink** and _heat_ pressed in on all sides. She led the way down the long corridor that ran to the heart of the station, a place she'd picked out from the _books_ and _pages_ of everyone else as being the center of transit for the station. People were on all sides of them, swarthy and dangerous and armed and a significant percentile intoxicated or seeking intoxicants. If she were alone, she'd have had a hard time barely standing up straight with all the noises and colors and _dribbling inks_ in a thousand flavorful aromas, but she gripped the little hand of the little person beside her, and she kept it under control.

River Tam and Kathryn Wade walked down the hallways of Sirocco Station, the small spaceport reminding her unpleasantly of vids of Earth-That-Was' Age of Sail. Fanciful representations of pirate dens or places of inequity; Wash called such ports "wretched hives" with that faint grin he had when he made an ancient media reference no one else ever got. It didn't match this place, but that was because Sirocco was vaguely orderly - mostly because of individuals walking up and down the passages that had clouds of foreign fear hanging over them, that the less-heavily-armed avoided. Men and women in slightly better clothes, carrying larger weapons with one of several badges on their shoulders or chests or tattooed on their foreheads. They had a reason to keep order; gangs always found it easier to do crime when things were kept orderly.

She made a note to suggest keeping things simple to Mal when she got back.

It would be a while, River noted, as Katie squeezed her fingers and tugged her toward the end of the long hallway leading away from the docks. The crowd parted as a deep _chu-thunk, chu-thunk_ sound came across the passage from one of the side corridors running from one bay to another, and the pair stopped as well. A dock worker piloting an nine-foot-tall power-loader exoskeleton stomped past, the device all dull grays and with some red marking, including a blue line of slash marks indicating one of the gangs. The pilot was hidden behind a reflective, glassy cockpit canopy, and the exoskeleton hissed with badly-maintained hydraulics as it walked.

As soon as it passed, Katie tugged on River's hand, and she agreed. They continued down the corridor into the central connection for the station. It opened up into a familiar din of sights and smells and noises, from dozens of vendors and stalls, intermixed with the distant rumble of working industrial machinery that kept the station intact. River turned slowly, taking in the sights of Sirocco's marketplace, set up in the promenade that ran between the different wings of the station.

Just over eight hundred people called Sirocco home, and River knew from the data flowing into her from hundreds of books all crammed together on one shelf that there were four gangs controlling the station; one, the Iron Talons, ran the public housing area and docks, two more were based out of the wings that were connected to the promenade, the Red Lions and the Black Hands. The Red Talons ran the engineering area where illegal pharmaceuticals were manufactured alongside the engineering equipment.

_-odd that the gangs would have such similar names with so much emphasis on colors, but originality was not something she expected out of criminals who crammed themselves onto a station in the _pi gu_ of the Verse-_

River blinked.

Then she blinked again.

Katie's hand was _away_, and a hundred different **people** _stormed_ their way into her brain, _a whirlwind of thoughts and __**processes**__ and _needs_ and __**desires**__ that hadn't been there for _forever_._

River took a step backward, and bumped her arm on a bulkhead

-_pain exploding __**up and down **__a phantom limb, blood flying in front of his eyes, an impact that set ten thousand __galaxies alight in __**his head **__and he's falling-_

_Staring at his corpse - not corpse, Mal dying, Simon working-_

_Jayne's hands on her, intermixed with John's voice-_

she's in your head, River

River jerked, and suddenly realized her other hand was clutching Laertes, the electrosword sheathed and safe inside the simple wood. She stared down at it, not sure how it had gotten there, a _haze_ replacing a haze filled _**with chaos and**_

"River," whispered a voice.

Fingers, around hers, jerking, _clarity whispering _that _this was wrong_, to not let _her no not this __**aga**__**i**__**-**_

River blinked.

Katie was by her side, holding her had again.

"Don't leave me in the crowd again, River," Katie whispered, hugging the older girl's side, and a wave of embarrassment and shame fell over her. How could she leave a little girl like that? The station was too distracting and dangerous.

"This isn't safe," River said after a moment. Katie nodded.

"We need a place to stay," she murmured, and River nodded. She furrowed her brow, thinking of where they needed to go.

"Public housing is this way," she said. "Let's go."

* * *

The Black spread out cross the forward viewport like it always had, a nearly-unchanging blot of ink intermixed with countless daggers of light. Or something else equally trite and/or poetic, Wash guessed. It was hard to think on that, considering the quietly desperate air that had fallen across the ship, plus the fact that he had a Tam in his copilot's chair, but not the Tam that belonged there.

Simon wasn't a bad pilot - just a horrible one, Wash had come to realize. At least he could fly the ship without plowing it into a moon, but Wash would trust Jayne after a twelve-hour binge to land the ship before the Doctor. Especially a Doc as distracted as Simon was now.

Simon was pensive, peering out into the Black with distant and distracted eyes, his hand over his mouth in that way he got when he was thinking hard on something while keeping that clinical detachment that took over when it came time to put his emotions aside. With the exception of the periodic beeps and whistles and pervasive humming that came with the working bridge consoles, the cockpit was silent.

"So, has Mal improved any?" Wash asked into the silence. Simon blinked once.

"Not noticeably," he replied almost immediately, removing his hand from his mouth. "His vitals are strong, and as long as we keep him fed on intravenous, he'll survive."

"But his brain isn't improving," Wash said, and Simon shook his head.

"Without neural scanning equipment I can't make an accurate diagnosis on the damage, let alone prescribe any treatments," he said, his voice an almost disturbingly-soft monotone.

"Maybe we can head someplace with the right equipment," Wash suggested. "Hey, we got into Ariel, we can do it again."

Silence. It took Wash a moment to realize what he'd said, and a sideways glance at the Doctor showed he'd gone back into distant-pensive-hand-over-mouth-mode.

Mentioning Ariel had reminded Simon of why they'd gone there - which reminded him all too keenly of his sister. Wash muttered a curse under his breath at how dumb that had been.

The pilot debated internally over what he could say to Simon that wouldn't sound trite or meaningless. Nothing could immediately suffice, for Simon Tam; his sister had been all that mattered to him for so long, and while he'd extended his little sphere of Simon-worry to the rest of their family, River was still foremost in his mind.

"Doc," Wash finally said. Simon didn't stir. "Doctor."

Simon looked away from the Black and to the pilot, and Wash was momentarily startled at the surprised look on Simon's face.

"Doc, we're getting her back," he said, just like the last time. In the reflection of one of the monitors over Simon's head, Wash caught the expression on his face - that coldly determined glare that snuck out in their darkest moments.

"I know," Simon said, and that distance cracked slightly, along with his voice. "I just . . . ."

"You lost her once," Wash said. "And then again, and both times she came back hurt." Some quiet part of his mind recognized the tone he was speaking in - the same tone that had emerged when they'd been readying to storm Niska's base.

"And we're going to do it again," Wash added, and he felt that deep-seated worry rise up in his own gut. He fought it down. "That's all there is to it."

Simon nodded and looked away, and Wash saw him close his eyes tight. He suddenly had a vivid recollection of the last time he'd seen a Tam so distressed in his cockpit, when River had collapsed months ago, and the low-burning worry nestling in his gut blossomed again as he remembered how helpless he'd felt while trying to calm her down in the middle of her madness.

"Doc, uh," Wash said, and swiveled around in his chair. Simon glanced up.

"Need to take a walk," the pilot said. "Watch the console for me?"

"Sure," Simon said, nodding again. Without another word, Wash rose up, the anxiety and worry forcing him to get up so he could work it off somehow.

* * *

The rest of the ship was quiet, Wash noted, as he went back toward the mess. That was a relative matter, though, as the ship was always faintly humming with noise, from the engines, the atmosphere processors, the electrical conduits and so on. But at the same time, Wash had become accustomed to the ship having some form of human activity adding to the background noise. Nine people aboard made a lot of sound when they were about, even before Mal had begun requiring someone remain awake at all times.

Even before they'd started that precaution, Mal had almost always been up and about, walking around the ship, poking at stuff, moving things around, and generally being the omnipresent and annoying captain he was. And it wasn't just the lack of Mal's contact activity, either; everyone else seemed subdued and quiet, leaving the ship with an odd, almost deathly quiet.

He supposed having the captain comatose and another crewmember kidnapped by psychotic, mind-controlling child would have that effect.

Wash moved through the mess, the room darkened and empty, and headed down the stairs in the engine corridor behind it. As he descended to the passenger area, Wash could hear voices coming from the cargo bay, and as he reached the foot of the stairs, he noticed that one of the passenger bunks was lit. Wash edged forward, and saw that the passenger bunk nearest the infirmary was open.

Inara was inside, sitting at a small desk that unfolded out of one of the wall panels, opposite the room's bed. She was leaning over a long strip of white paper, and her face was locked in careful concentrations as she traced a kanji down the paper, each motion careful and measured. Wash had once heard calligraphy being compared to piloting, and he'd tried it out, to find that manipulating two hundred different shipboard systems while simultaneously keeping track of the positions of hundreds of ships, satellites, space debris, and gunfire didn't exactly compare to using a paintbrush to trace kanji.

She'd been in the room for pretty much the entirety of the time since they'd left Victoria, save to get food and to talk with the security officer on that transport liner. At first glance, Inara didn't look any different than she'd always had, with that elegant demeanor and calm, faintly amused poise to her. It took someone who'd known her for a while to notice the things out of place: a minor wrinkle in her silk here, a few out-of-place hairs there.

The reason why lay behind her.

Mal looked surprisingly well for a man in a coma. He was pale, but only as pale as one got from staying on-ship for weeks at a time. His arm and shoulder were still wrapped in bandages, but the dressing on his head had been removed, leaving an ugly mark across the side of his head where he'd been struck. He hadn't lost any muscle mass, thanks to the IV leads and bags hanging on the wall behind him. Simon had assured them that the intravenous nutrients would prevent wasting and muscle loss. Mal's face was uncharacteristically still, and not in the way that it was when he was asleep, either. Wash was used to Mal's constant movement and direction – even if that direction was toward crotchety, arrogant, and violent.

Wash would have spoken up, to ask how Inara was, if there'd been any change in Mal, or if she needed anything, but he didn't want to break the quiet, almost desperate peace of the room before him. Instead, he slipped past the room and started toward the infirmary. As he headed that way, he paused, noting a second area of the passenger bunks was lit. He edged toward it, and realized whose room it was.

It was River's.

The door was open, and Wash peeked inside, and blinked in surprise when he saw Jayne sitting on her bed. He was looking through a notebook that had River's characteristic mixture of precise notation and wild scrawls, and his face was scrunched up in his usual attempt at comprehension.

Wash cleared his throat, and Jayne nearly leapt through the nearest bulkhead.

"Jesus, little man," he gasped a moment later, having gone from sitting to standing straight up.

"Most folks get violent when someone else intrudes in their room," Wash remarked. He kept the annoyance and bit of anger he was feeling out of his voice. "Especially when they look at their journals."

"I weren't – I mean, I wasn't – didn't –" He scowled. "Ain't you supposed to be takin' us to Sirocco?"

"Autopilot," Wash replied, and glanced at River's journal, which Jayne had dropped on the bed when he'd jumped up, and then back to Jayne. The mercenary's shock and surprise started to shift to a scowl.

"Wanted to see I there was . . . anything she'd written might help us, is all," he said. "Wasn't prying or nothin'." He snapped a hand toward the book as Wash picked it up. "Can't make heads or tails of what she's written anyhow."

"I'd promise not to say anything to her once we find her," Wash said, and his anger started to fade at the surprisingly reasonable idea Jayne had. "But that would be difficult to hide." He glanced back down at the book. "Find anything?"

"No, nothing," Jayne said, and started to push past Wash. "Just crazy. Like usual."

Wash considered stopping him, but that would be like trying to block a mag-train with his face. He stepped aside and let Jayne rumble his way out of the room. He carefully set the journal down on her bed and closed the door behind him, and headed down to the cargo bay.

The pilot passed the darkened infirmary, and started into the cargo bay when he nearly ran headlong into Kaylee. The mechanic was breathing heavily and sweaty, and was wiping her hands, her hair disheveled.

"Wash, hey," she said, pulling up short before plowing into him, and she flashed a quick smile - quick but brittle, he noticed.

"Kaylee, you been busy?" he asked.

"Just securing all the crates. Would be easier if I had a power loader, and we're maybe going to be in danger so . . . yeah?" she said. She looked over Wash's shoulder. "Is Inara okay?"

"Yeah, I just checked on her and Mal," he said.

"Oh, well, good, I guess," she said, and he saw the anxiety creeping across her face. "Have you seen Simon?"

"He was up on the bridge last time I checked," Wash said. "And I think he might need someone to talk to. Certainly wasn't talking much to me."

"Oh, he just needs to be approached the right way," Kaylee said, and started past him. "I'll go cheer him up."

Wash let her past him and entered the cargo bay, where he heard the zip-click of a loaded weapon being readied. Just inside the door, lined up on a few packing crates about waist high, was Serenity's entire arsenal of small arms - save Jayne's personal armory. They were laid out on cloth, some disassembled, while others lay intact and ready to be picked up and fired.

Shepherd Book was cleaning one of the disassembled weapons, face locked in tight concentration and focus.

"Hey, Shepard," Wash said. "You're looking awfully . . . armed."

"Yes," the preacher replied, with a nod, and started reassembling the rifle with practiced skill.

"Don't blame you," Wash added. "Place we're headed to and all."

"Sirocco Station has always had a bad reputation," Book said, checking a magazine. "A haven for criminal types on the edge of the system."

"Sounds like our kind of place," Wash said, and Book nodded. He continued

"Shepherd," Wash said, looking back toward him. "Is . . . she going to be alright? When we find her?"

Book went still for a long few moments, eyes going distant. Finally, he looked back to Wash, and he seemed to age a few decades right where stood. It wasn't obvious, but he could see it in Book's stance; that weary, heavy resignation coupled with too many years of too much dark, pressing weight.

"I honestly don't know," Book murmured, and slid the magazine into the reassembled weapon. "What that girl did to her . . . to all of us . . . I don't know. They get into your head, the Inducers, and they change things. I don't know how long it takes to heal from that, or even if one can."

On that dreary note, he slowly turned back to the weapons and picked out another to prepare. Wash waited a moment for Book to add to that, to maybe include some hopeful addendum, but he didn't. Wash turned to leave, unable to muster a response to that rather unpleasant statement.

"I suppose I'm not being a good Shepherd, here," Book suddenly said, and his fingers clenched. "But . . . she killed my friend. She took another, maybe permanently, and kidnapped one of the flock I'm supposed to be protecting."

"Are you angry?" Wash asked. Book shook his head and closed his eyes.

"No. Just . . . sad," he murmured. "That a child was turned into this. And that so many people had to suffer for it."

A few moments of silence passed, and Book reached down, picking up one of the disassembled weapons. He started cleaning it, slowly and carefully.

"Preacher, it wasn't your fault," Wash offered. "Not what they did to that kid, or what happened to Mal or River."

"I know," Book said. "But if I had known, or if I'd shared what I'd learned sooner, maybe . . . ."

"Might have, Shepherd," Wash said. "But either way, we've got to deal things as they are."

"Yes, you're right," Book said, looking up at Wash and nodding. They met eyes for a moment, and Wash saw some of that age fade away, just a bit.

"Well, I'd better get back to work," Book said. He tried to avoid sounding like he wanted to be left alone, but Wash understood.

"Right, I'm probably needed up in the cockpit anyway," Wash added, and he started up the stairs to the upper deck, leaving the preacher to himself.

* * *

The bridge was still occupied like it was when he left, only now Simon had vanished. In his stead, Wash found his wife, seated in the copilot's chair, staring out at the Black with almost the same expression as the doctor had. He walked up behind her, knowing she'd heard him approach (always a bad idea to try to sneak up on Zoë) and put his hands on her shoulders. Wash immediately registered the tension there, before she leaned her head back and looked up at him. Her expression was tight and unreadable, but he saw the appreciation in her eyes as he kneaded the tension with his fingers.

"Where's the doc?" he asked.

"Looked tired. I ordered him to bed," she said. "If things are as bad as we expect, we'll need the medic to be fully-rested."

"You think he can sleep like this?" Wash asked.

"No," she replied, and looked back out the window. "But he needs to try." Her hand rose up and grasped his wrist. They stayed that way for a while, both peering out the front viewport, until Wash finally spoke up.

"Hon, I know you're worried," Wash said. "We all are."

She didn't respond immediately. One hand absently touched her swelling stomach.

"Last time we went up against those blue-hands, we nearly lost most of the crew," Zoë said after a moment. "Something in my gut tells me this won't end as clean."

"Or it could be the little one, telling you to settle down," Wash replied, releasing her and walking to his own chair. Zoë's stony demeanor cracked for a split-second, what could have been a smile tugging at her face, but then she went back to staring out into the Black.

Wash settled down into his chair, and watched her for a few moments, listening to the background hum of the machinery. He made a few minute course adjustments without really thinking about it, and heard her rise from her own chair.

"It's not the responsibility, if that's what you're thinking," Zoë said, stepping behind him. "Me and Mal talked about it for a long while, in case something ever happened to him." Her hand moved away from her stomach, and grasped the edge of the pilot console. It took her a minute to continue.

"She got in my head," Zoë finally whispered.

Wash was silent on that for a second, and saw the turmoil in Zoë's eyes. It wasn't obvious, but the emotion flickered over her face, and Wash could tell she was holding back one hell of a hurricane of feelings.

Anything he would say at this point would, at best, come off as intruding. Instead, her took his wife's fingers in hand and squeezed tightly. She glanced down at him and nodded.

The noise of the bridge consoles filled the room, and they left it that way. Some things didn't need to be talked about.

"You should get some rest," she said.

"I'm alright," he argued, but she shushed him before Wash could start protesting.

"Not a request, husband," she said, and that sort-of-smile ghosted over her face. "You look almost as bad as the doctor did. Besides, you've barely cracked a smart-ass remark in three days. Go take a nap."

Wash blinked, and tried mentally going over the last few days.

"The last few days have been remarkably wit-free, haven't they," he murmured.

"I know you're worried about her," Zoë said. "And you're worried about all of us. Makes you tired in ways you don't notice until you collapse."

"I'm not . . . am I?" he asked, and she nodded.

"Hon, you're one of the gentlest souls I know," she said. "You can't help but worry." She squeezed his shoulder. "And sometimes, that worry turns into whole lot of determination."

"Its a specialized skill," he said, and reluctantly started to rise.

"Rest," Zoë ordered again, and kissed him lightly on the lips. "So when we find 'em, I'll know my husband will be ready to bring her back."

"Yes ma'am," he replied, and kissed her back.

* * *

Three days on the station saw three armed confrontations that nearly ended in gunfire.

River and Katie had stayed inside a small apartment they'd secured with money they'd pickpocketed off passengers on the liner and later on the station. They'd only emerged to gather supplies and food - which mostly consisted of Katie making sure the vendors were distracted while River stole what they needed. During their trips to the market, River counted at least three instances where members of one gang confronted members of another with drawn weapons. Only one incident ended in violence, and no one was killed, but it was nonetheless emblematic of the situation on the station.

"The gangs exist in a state of mutual threat," River said as she and Katie sat in an alcove in one corner of the promenade. They were eating some spiced, dried meat that River was seventy percent certain contained only two percent actual meat, and watching the station's inhabitants go about their business. "Stability only exists because the danger each gang represents to each other is too high to risk open conflict."

"They'll start shooting each other any second?" Katie asked. River shrugged.

"I don't know," she murmured. "But violence is inevitable. An equilibrium based on threat of violence is fragile and liable to break at the slightest outside pressure."

They watched for a while, and part of River wondered how much longer it would be before she could go home again, or at least see her family. This was important, but she missed her brother and the rest of her family.

Two men walked past their alcove, and they glanced at River. Lazy, oily, snake-like ideas flowed around them, and River felt a flush of hot anger run through her. She glared back at the two leering men as they muttered and grinned, and put her hand on her sword.

The two men jerked back at once, and the hungry, leering serpents of lust faded away, replaced by flashbulbs of fear, and they hurried along. River found herself smiling in satisfaction, and glanced to Katie.

"You enjoying doing that," she said, and Katie nodded.

"So did you," she replied, and River reluctantly shrugged in agreement.

"You know, we'll need to deal with them," Katie said a few moments later, calmly chewing on her dried jerky.

"What?" River asked.

"Three of the gangs need to be dealt with," Katie said. "Pick one. The others will go away. Then we'll be safe."

It took River a second to process what she was suggesting with such simple terms, but the moment she understood, a chill ran through her.

"Too many people will get hurt," River said, shaking her head. "We can't do that."

"Its the only way we'll be safe," Katie replied, and took another bite of her meat. "The survivor will work for us. We'll move on from there."

"No, we can't," River said, and she heard that distant voice in her head, a voice bringing up images of Mal, of the villagers, of Jory, of-

Katie muttered under her breath and grabbed River's hand again, and all objections vanished. River shuddered and shook her head, and glanced back down at the girl she was safeguarding, wondering what she'd been thinking about a moment ago, before turning her attention back across the station.

"Who should we start with?" Katie asked.

"Don't know," River replied, and tried picking out some specifics. It was hard to do in the sea of emotions and thoughts, a hurricane of ink in a library of

_empty_

River froze. Katie looked up at her, stopping mid-chew.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Nothing," River said, and terror slashed through her. "_Nothing_."

She leapt to her feet as she felt the nothing approaching, and knew what it meant.

"We have to hide," River said, words laced with tight, barely-contained terror.

"Who-"

"I can't see them, which is how I see them," River said, pulling the girl out of her seat, and Katie's eyes widened in understanding. "Empty spaces in a sea of thought.

"_Blanks_."

* * *

The new arrival's airlock cycled, and the Dockmaster Jonen walked up to it, typing on his datapad. The mass of the new arrival was minimal, but it needed to be taken into account, and the refueling process would cost more than usual due to the engine type, and they'd need to pay extra for a premium space . . . .

The door hissed open, and Jonen glanced up, and scowled at the man who emerged. Cleanly dressed, with close-shaved hair, wearing a nice suit, and lean and tall, he looked the opposite of Jonen's short, moderately overweight, heavily muscled form, glad in his grimy jumpsuit and oversized helmet with mounted ear-protectors. As he approached, a second man, dressed exactly the same, emerged.

"Welcome to Sirocco, gentlemen," Jonen said. "Docking fee is gonna be . . . hold on a second . . . ."

"We're not paying your fee," the first man said, and Jonen glanced up at him, yes narrowing.

"Everyone who docks here pays the fee, or else ugliness happens," Jonen said. "Now, its gonna be-"

"He said we're not paying," the second man cut Jonen off. His voice was odd, cold, almost inflectionless, but that fact barely occurred to Jonen before he pulled himself up to his full height and gestured over his shoulder. Two of the dockhands strode forward, and made no attempt to hide the guns in their holsters.

"You're gonna pay, or we'll-"

Jonen stopped mid-sentence as the rest of the ship's passengers emerged.

Behind the two suited men were a dozen figures clad in black armor and full-face helmets, with mounted multi-spectrum goggles. They were all carrying heavy assault weapons - rifles, machineguns, and automatic shotguns.

One of the suited men reached into his coat pocket and drew out a datapad in the ensuing silence, as the commandos moved out into the room. Anyone who didn't belong in the docking area quickly hurried out. The suited man held up the pad, and on it Jonen saw two pictures: a black-haired little girl, and a dark haired older girl, probably in her late teens. They seemed familiar.

"Have you seen these two?" the man asked, his tone horribly cold.

Jonen noticed in his peripheral vision that the man's fingers were covered in a rubbery blue material.

"Uh, yeah," the dockmaster said, thinking hard as the commandos moved past him. "Yeah. I think I saw them. The older one was with the younger girl. She had some kind of staff or walking stick with her. It was a few days ago."

Without another word, the suited man put the datapad away.

Jonen heard a hiss-click, and saw the second suited man had produced a small, rod-like device, and held it out in his blue-fingered hand.

* * *

River jerked as the screaming slammed into her. Pain, the familiar, white-hot agony of other people who were hit by the pulse shivered through her, and she stumbled, gasping and sobbing - until Katie grabbed her arm, and the pain faded away, replaced by clarity.

"River?" she asked.

"They're here," she whispered, standing up straight and shaking her head. "Hands of blue. Two with twelve in dark."

Katie stared back at her for a moment, and then pulled on her hand.

"Back to the room. I'll cover us," she said, and River started to walk-

_-red hot hatred, boiling tension spilling over into a **frenzy**, jealousies, petty wrongs, rage and _fury_ and pure, **unrelenting hatred **from a hundred mouths and a _**hundred books**_ and a hundred pages-_

River dropped to her knees as it crashed down on her, all at once, and howls of fury filled the air.

A moment later, gunfire erupted, not twenty feet away, as a Red Lion opened fire on a pair of Black Hands, screaming his rage and fury at them. They returned the favor, weapons clearing holsters and screaming in the confines space. In all directions, the scene was repeated, and the bubbling violence of Sirocco Station erupted into a full-on gang war.

In the span of a few seconds, everyone on Sirocco who was armed had drawn a weapon and started shooting.

Katie pulled River onto her feet, and pushed away the pain and the violence and the heart-stopping storm of hate. Part of River told her to pull her hand away, that this was not supposed to be happening, that Katie was-

Her thoughts broke apart as an overwhelming need to keep the girl holding her hand safe filled River, and without thinking she scooped Katie up and ran through the promenade while the whole station began to tear itself apart. River ducked her hand, cradled the girl and shielded her with her body, and fled the warzone.

* * *

_**Author's Notes: **_This chapter was very difficult for me, especially in the middle with Wash's dialogue with the rest of the crew as he walked around the ship. I decided that since his viewpoint was very minimal in the last episode, that he'll be the viewpoint character for this one, to mirror Zoe's dominance in the last arc.

Hopefully, the rest of this episode won't be as difficult to write.

To answer a question brought up in a recent review, Katie doesn't need to be in contact with someone to affect them, but tactile contact dramatically increases her ability to influence someone's thoughts and feelings. As demonstrated in the last arc, people who are out of physical contact with the inducer in question can think on their own, just with heavily-influenced emotional responses; physical contact allows for direct mind-control. A significant part of River _knows _that Katie is an enemy and is trying - vainly - to fight her, which is why Katie needs to constantly be in close proximity to River to break her mind and turn it to her ends.

Until next chapter . . . .


	61. Chapter Two: Pursuit

_**Chapter Two: Pursuit**_

It was always a bad sign when the criminals sent out distress signals. _Serenity_ had picked them up en route to Sirocco, and no one had any doubts what was behind it. Wash had _Serenity_ running dark on momentum from a single hard burn, using only cold thrusters to correct their course. It was similar to the time they'd raided Niska's skyplex, though the apprehension and fear in the crew was magnified.

Zoë had managed to get a nap during the wait, sleeping in the dining room. A hand jerked her shoulder, and she bolted awake, to find Jayne standing over her.

"What happened?" she asked, adrenaline pushing her up to her feet. Zoë moved quickly for a woman several months pregnant; she'd gotten good at moving with the child growing in her, but knew she'd be past the point where she could keep fighting in the next few weeks.

"Two hours out," Jayne said, and she noted he was wearing holsters, ammunition webbing, and enough revolvers for a platoon of gunslingers. "Best get ready."

She nodded her appreciation and started for the table. It was strewn with weapons, ammo, and grenades, all laid out in neat rows by type and size. Most of _Serenity's_ ever-expanding arsenal was assembled there.

"Any change?" she asked as she walked toward the table.

"Not yet," Jayne said. "Little man says he can't get a good sensor scan, crappy stuff we got now, so he can't pick out where they are or if them Blue Hands have docked."

"We'll find out when we get there, then," Zoë said. She reached down for one of the pistols. "I'm thinking Doc might be a liability when we get in there. Worried about River and all."

"Might," Jayne said, tone distant. "Gets emotional about her."

Jayne paused, then looked up at her as she loaded the weapon, and his blue eyes suddenly seemed sharper, more intense. The expression shocked her for a moment.

"Zoë," he said, his voice tight and serious. "What are you gonna do when we find her?"

Zoë went still, and a small part of her locked up. Anxious fear that she'd never show openly closed around her chest. What _would_ she do when she saw Katie again? Those scared, dark little eyes? Just thinking about the little girl sent a welling of sympathy running through her, unabated but still intense and real. It was a false emotion, and she _knew_ it was false, but it still felt genuine.

"I . . . don't know," Zoë murmured. Jayne nodded after a moment, again catching her off guard. She'd expected him to be angry, or maybe dismissive or snarky. Instead, she saw a tightening around his eyes, of something she'd never expected to see in him.

Pain.

"Jayne?" she asked, sitting down across from him. "Something the matter? Other than what we're already going through, I mean."

Jayne's gaze shifted back to the weapons on the table before him, and he picked up one of the pistols, going through the motions of checking the chamber and barrel.

"Kid got in my head, too," he admitted. "But I'm more worried 'bout River."

"You remember her code phrase?" Zoë asked, and he nodded.

"But what about the kid?" he asked. Zoë frowned. "We're not getting anywhere if she mindscrews us again."

"I know."

"You're cold, Zoë," he added, and that made her look up at him. "Always been cold. Right scary, sometimes. Even when you were angry, you were like a blizzard. Never let emotion take over."

Zoë remembered that same rage that Jayne was describing – that calm, rational fury that had served her well in the war, that had frozen and burned in her while she'd been meeting Niska, that had pushed her to wade into the Reavers that had hurt her husband. And she remembered the other rage, the unstoppable fury that had taken over while she'd been fighting the mercenaries in the chapel – a rage that had blinded her, that had almost made her shoot a friend, a berserk fit of violence that had been equal parts hate and fear.

"I let myself get involved, back on Victoria," Zoë said, her words soft and quiet. "She got to me, too. Gave me something I'd been wanting, and now . . . ."

She felt a shiver run down her, of a mixture of emotions; fear, pain, sympathy, apprehension, anxiety, and a tiny bit of what could only be . . . _hate_.

It was a mass of confused, jumbled emotions, left when Katie had twisted her own mind into knots. It was what happened when betrayal mixed with love, a maternal need to protect and defend that had been forced on her by someone who had used her and her crew, then hurt her and her crew when they were no longer useful.

And Zoë had no idea how to react to it.

She closed her eyes, stilled her breath, and bottled it all up. She pulled all of the anger and sympathy and fear and anxiety and dragged it down, burying it for now. She'd have time to sort it out later. For now, she had a job to do.

"We find her," Zoë said, opening her eyes. "We don't hesitate."

Jayne nodded in agreement, a surge of confidence running through him; Zoë didn't need to be a reader to see it, as he loaded his weapons with renewed vigor.

Zoë just hoped that she could match actions to words.

* * *

The space they'd rented was a simple, two room apartment in the public living area. It was a small kitchenette combined with a living room, and an alcove held the tiny washroom. Beds folded down from one wall, opposite the kitchen, and the whole apartment taken together was maybe twice as big as a bunk on _Serenity_. It was small and somewhat dirty and cramped and cheap.

But it was also safe from the storm of violence that had filled the entire station. Men and women were killing each other, guns blazing, knives stabbing, and blunt weapons bludgeoning. Blood ran through the corridors of the station, and every few minutes some particularly dim bulb set off an explosion in the confined, fragile station. Eight hundred people were either tearing each other apart or were getting caught in the crossfire as the four gangs running the station murdered each other in a torrent of induced hatred and paranoia.

River curled up inside the apartment, lying on the bed, unable to shut out the unending storm of hate. It was a knife fight in a Cortex booth, metaphorically speaking, and she was listening on the line, unable to cut the communication and forced to listen as people screamed and howled and died. It wasn't like hearing Reavers; Reavers had a purpose. This was just mindless, beating fury and violence.

In the middle of it all was a black-haired child sitting on the edge of River's bed, eyes distant as she pushed everyone into their mindless killing frenzy. River could feel her there, the eye in the storm, around which the whole metaphorical hurricane was spinning.

"Are they still there?" Kathryn asked in the darkness.

Gunfire rumbled outside. River didn't want to go out into the storm; enough blood was _splashing_ on her here, in this shelter, tight and safe and secure. Kathryn turned, looking down at River, eyes weary but determined. She reached out and took River's hand.

"I can't see them," Kathryn whispered. "Not like you."

Guilt and shame flowed through River, and part of her told herself that she wasn't really feeling those emotions - but she couldn't ignore them, or the need she felt. River slowly started to sit up, steeling herself, gripping the girl's fingers tighter, and spread her awareness outward.

Claws of hate lashed out and ripped into her the instant she did so, and began savaging her mind, hurling her back and forth, ripping and biting. Screams, cries of pain and terror, and a hundred burning, blood-splattered books flew in front of her, spinning her around while the hatred mauled her perceptions. She yelped and withdrew, and found herself curling back up and sobbing. Pain, actual, _physical, white-__**hot **_**spikes**of agony pounded through her temples.

"I can't," River sobbed, lying back against the wall. "I'm sorry, I can't, Katie . . . "

"Its okay," Katie said, her voice soothing. The pain began to fade, along with the horror, replaced by a peace that for a few moments seemed hideously perverse, until it washed everything else away. "Shhh. Its okay River."

Katie's eyes became distant again, and the violence intensified outside.

"I just have to kill more of them," she said. "Then you can see how many Blanks are left. Okay?"

* * *

"This is getting familiar," Wash said as they gathered in the cargo bay, an assortment of weapons in hand. The whole of the crew was armed and ready, standing around the bay; Wash with his shotgun, Book with a rifle and pistols, Jayne with Vera and enough weapons for a minor revolution, Inara and her torque bow, and Simon and Kaylee with submachineguns held with a familiarity that Zoë found faintly disheartening.

"Wish it weren't," Kaylee replied, and Zoë agreed with her.

"Okay, everyone," Zoë said, raising her voice, and getting that familiar feeling she'd had when they'd been getting ready to storm Niska's skyplex. It wasn't like when they'd been preparing to storm his ship; then, Mal had been in charge. Now, everyone was relying on her again, and it wouldn't do for her to betray her anxiety.

"Sirocco is sending general distress signals," Zoë continued. "That's not a good sign, so we're going in heavy. We've got to assume the station is going to be a hostile place. Someone points a gun at you, you shoot back."

"That's how we usually approach these things, anyway," Wash said, and Zoë nodded.

"'less its River, right?" Kaylee asked, and Zoë nodded.

"If you see River, you use the code phrase on her," she said. "She's not going to be in her right mind, and this is what they put the code in her head for."

The others nodded, and she caught a sense of apprehension from them, which was entirely understandable. As much as River hated fighting, she was the most dangerous person on the crew. Going up against her was going to be ugly, no way around it.

"What if we encounter Kathryn?" Book asked, and Zoë paused. She glanced to Jayne, who nodded, but the preacher's words hit something in her gut that made her want to say otherwise. She looked to the Shepherd, and saw a sort of weary anticipation there, instead of judgment. Inara and Kaylee seemed uncertain, while Wash was listening intently. Jayne had already seemed to make up his mind, and when Zoë looked to Simon, she was surprised to see the same quiet determination in his face.

"If we see Katie," Zoë said, steeling herself. "Shoot her. She won't give us another chance."

"But she's a kid . . ." Kaylee said, her eyes and voice uncertain, and Zoë nodded.

"I know. She's also killed more folks than we probably know about, and taken one of ours and left another in a coma. She's too dangerous and uncontrolled, and she _knows_ what she can do."

Zoë heard the chill in her own voice, and fought to keep from being disturbed by it. Instead, she continued.

"First team will be me, Wash, Jayne, and Book," she said. "We'll head inside the station and try to find her. Inara, Kaylee, and Simon will stay in the docks and keep the ship secure."

"You need me out there," Simon cut in, and Zoë nodded. She expected this, and she already knew what he was going to say.

"I know, Doc," she replied. "Which is why-"

"She's my sister," he said, and his tone was the kind he got when he was standing up to Mal's particular brand of thick-headed. "I'm going with you to bring her back."

Zoë understood what drove him, and knew that Mal's usual technique of browbeating dissent into the deck never worked as well as he'd like on Simon.

"Normally, I'd agree, Doc," she said. "But simple fact is, you care about River, to the ends of the 'Verse. That's a liability here."

Simon's face locked up in a scowl, not immediately comprehending, until Book spoke up.

"Kathryn Wade will use it against you, is what Zoë means," the Shepherd said. "Your fears for River will make it easy for her to control you. Easier than the rest of us."

"If you go with us, Doctor, you're going to have to be cold," Zoë said, and she could feel the air around her chilling at her tone. "And you can't be. Any other time, you've got liquid nitrogen in your veins, but not when River's in danger."

Simon stared back at her, and then spoke, his words calm and quiet.

"When I rescued River from the Academy," he said, "I had to walk in there armed with only a stun grenade and pretend I was a military officer. The slightest slip-up and I would have been discovered. When we were about to be burned alive, I chose to stand up there, eat my fear, and die with her. When we were arrested on Ariel, I had to control myself while facing death or worse for her. And when we went after Niska's ship, I was in the room with you when you and Mal tore a helpless man apart for information in order to find River and Jayne."

He locked his eyes on Zoë's, and stood straight and firm.

"So do not look at me," Simon Tam whispered, "and tell me I cannot _damned well _be cold when I need to be to save someone I love."

Zoë stared back at the young doctor, listened to the power in his words, and understood. She slowly nodded.

"Wash," Zoë said, looking up at her husband. "You'll be with Kaylee and Inara. Doc will go with me, Shepherd, and Jayne."

Everyone nodded at the change in the plan.

"We'll hit the station in less than an hour," Zoë said after a moment passed. "Kaylee, your job is to break into the station's records and sensors while we're entering the station, just like when we took Niska's boat . . . ."

* * *

Kathryn scowled as she made Sirocco kill itself.

Eight hundred people were difficult to herd, though it was getting easier with each passing moment. Everyone who was armed was engaged or looking for someone to kill. Everyone who was unarmed was dead or had simply collapsed under the mental beating. By now, more than half the station was dead or dying, and more fell with every minute as they slaughtered each other or were killed by the Hands.

The hard part was finding who to direct that violence toward. As it was, Kathryn couldn't induce hatred toward the Blanks and their people because she couldn't detect them in the first place with her limited abilities.

She looked to River again, and sighed. She was powerful but fragile, especially after Kathryn had been constantly controlling her thoughts. River could find the Blanks so she could have someone for Sirocco's inhabitants to focus their hatred on, but not if every time she attempted to locate them the violence hurt her mind.

So the solution was ugly but simple. Make everyone hate everyone. That way, at least some of the criminals would attack the Blanks - even if the majority were killing each other.

"I think it's been long enough," Kathryn finally said. "Can you see them?"

River murmured something, shaking her head, and Kathryn gripped her hand tighter, setting some of her attention to ordering River's thoughts. By herself, the older girl wouldn't have survived a day on Sirocco. As the seconds passed, her mind began to stabilize again, Kathryn's efforts ordering her brain to the point that she could think clearly and that her schizophrenia was controlled. River stilled, and started breathing more slowly.

The seconds passed, and Kathryn listened to her breath and felt her heartbeat quicken, and sensed her trepidation as she reached out. River's face tightened, and she began breathing faster, her fingers tightening around Kathryn's.

Some part of the little girl wanted to tell River to stop, that she didn't need to expose herself to that kind of pain for her sake.

The majority of Katie simply waited for River to do her part to keep her safe. After all, that was the whole point. River was Katie's.

River's breathing suddenly caught, followed by a swift inhalation, and her eyes widened, pulse hammering. Even to Kathryn's rudimentary senses, the flare of terror was clear, and she jumped to her feet.

"Where?" she asked, pulling River's arm.

"Thirty meters starboard!" she gasped, hand scrabbling for her sheathed sword. She snatched it up. "Killing, killing . . . this way, killing . . . ."

"Too soon," Katie whispered, and began telling everyone else on the station where they needed to be. She forced it down, a raw, unrelenting desire to be here, in this part of the station, killing.

Kathryn had no idea how many would take to that violent stab of emotional drive. She just needed to throw bodies at the Blanks until they could get somewhere safe - even if only one hundred or two were left.

For a moment, she considered adding River to that horde; she might actually be able to hurt or kill the Blanks, or at least slow them down. Maybe, just maybe if they saw River, they'd go after her and leave Kathryn alone . . . .

She distantly heard screams and gunfire, and Kathryn shook her head. No, that would be a waste. She needed River. And River was . . . important. She liked River. Kathryn wanted to keep her around. Losing her would be regretful.

"Engineering should be safe," Kathryn said, and River nodded. Very few people down there. They could hide in the lower decks, using the heat to baffle sensors, maybe sneak up on the Blanks and take them down.

They had to try something. Most of her pawns were dead, dying, or breaking down by now.

The door hissed open, and Katie and River stepped out into the scent of blood and stink of death, hearing the cries and gunfire and animal screams of humans gone beyond madness. The passage was lit by strobing amber and red, and littered with corpses as the habitats' inhabitants had killed or fled.

"This way," River said, and started forward, toward the corridors that would lead to the engineering decks, and Kathryn followed her protector.

* * *

It had been an apartment, at one point, before seven rival gangsters had turned it into a shooting gallery. Bodies lay sprawled over cheap furniture, barely visible in dim lighting. Klaxons sounded in the distance, and in the adjoining rooms, the occasional report of a rifle or shotgun could be heard.

Mr. Quinn stepped through the room, a pistol in one hand and a sonic pulse projector in the other. He saw no movement, but decided to just be sure. The projector activated.

A couple seconds later, one of the sprawled bodies twitched, and gasps of pain erupted from a prone woman. She twisted and writhed, blood leaking out of her mouth, eyes, nose, ears, and fingernails. She tried screaming, but the multiple bullet wounds in her back and flank made that impossible. She likely would have died in a few minutes or hours anyway, but better to not take chances.

Mr. Quinn watched her die, checked the bathroom for any survivors, and then stepped back outside, sealing the room behind him. on the radio, he heard reports as fireteams one and two cleared the surrounding apartments. Team three was moving toward engineering.

Team four was dead; even well-trained commandos with heavy weapons were somewhat outgunned by fifty gangsters swarming them. The loss of that team was unfortunate, and would slow the sweep down.

Across the hall, the doorway opposite his opened, and Quinn's partner, Mr. Eisen, stepped out. He nodded, and the two blue-gloved men started up the hallway to the next apartment, stepping over bodies and around pools of blood.

"Half the station has been secured," Eisen said as they opened the next doors. "No sign of either of them. The majority of the inhabitants are dead now; maybe a hundred remain."

"One-One-Nine isn't making them attack us anymore," Quinn suggested. "Maybe her control is slipping."

"Or she's driven many of them to insanity or mental collapse," Eisen said. "Either way, we'll be done here soon."

"They know we're here," Quinn mused, checking the empty apartment. No corpses in here, no signs of disturbance. Curious, but not enough to really be remarked on. "They'll be ready for us."

"If this place had a decent intercom system, this would be a lot easier," Eisen muttered, checking his room. "Clear here."

Quinn nodded, closing and locking the door. If it had a working intercom, they could just hack in, and begin looping both One-One-Nine and One-Three-Seven's control phrases.

But then, they hadn't taken this job because it was easy.

Quinn paused at the next room. He heard someone speaking inside. Male, adult, apparently afraid and hiding, judging by the frantic whispers and sobs. The Inducer's attempts at control were breaking minds across the station. At least this would make it simple.

He nodded, opened the door, and readied his sonic projector.

* * *

Most of the station was dead now. River could feel the blood seeping down the walls, the residue of death, facts and _memories_ clinging and dissipating and leaving emptiness that beat on her temples and clawed into her brain. She tried to ignore it, to block it out, to push it away, but she couldn't. If it weren't for Katie, some rational part of her recognized, she'd be curled up in a ball on the floor.

Some other part of her told River that would be preferable.

The corridors to engineering were a few dozen meters away, and they kept running, Katie struggling to keep up, her grip on River's hand tenuous. She could pick out the Hands of Blue through the emptiness, like knowing a hole was there because there should be something there but there wasn't. The soldiers with them were bright spots in the miasma of death, a dozen figures trailing with the pair of empty gaps. River found herself wondering why Katie wasn't attacking them.

Maybe she couldn't see them. They weren't Blanks, but they were just minds mixed in with many more. New minds were more resistant, and were in the stinking mental haze of pain and death that settled over the station, and-

River slowed, blinking. Something was telling her these thoughts were wrong, that Katie was-

She looked down toward the little girl, whose eyes were distant, angry . . . and distracted.

_strike now, threat is_

Kathryn's eyes snapped up to River as she started to raise Laertes like a club, and the older girl snapped her hand up and away, out of Katie's grip.

_blood seeping in, dying death **pain rivets iron ****emptiness **fire screaming death so much death _everywhere what _are **you **_**doing this **_**place is shit **_**zombies shiny**

Choking.

River gasped.

_"-zombies. Shiny."_

Wash.

_They were here, Simon and Zoë and Jayne and Inara and Kaylee and Book and flowing and entering and Serenity-_

part of her is distracted and now

River blinked.

Katie had a hand on her exposed leg, and her other hand rose up to take River's fingers. She took the little girl's hand in her own, shaking her head.

"What happ-" River started, before grief and pain lanced up through her, a sudden shock of physically painful emotion that made her knees wobble. Tears gathered in her eyes, tears that she didn't understand, guilt rolling around her chest and into her throat. She dropped down to one knee, her shoulder hitting the wall. A moment later she was sitting, Laertes clattering to the deck beside her.

The emotions flooded into her, unbidden, and some part of River, deep down, started screaming. Not audible, but the kind of screaming that had started when she'd first heard a man's thoughts, clear and unbidden, after the _first __cutting session_. The kind of screaming that started when she'd first felt the naked madness of a Reaver. The kind of screaming that had been happening ever since Katie had taken over, but now she could hear it in her own mind.

She was _inside River's head_. River _understood_ it. Katie was inside her head, and she was twisting it like a white-hot knife.

Katie stared at River, naked anger on her face, and it swirled around inside the little girl as she dropped all pretenses. River's momentary flash of rebellion had brought down the full wrath of the young Inducer, in the form of a savage, childish temper and a vicious flex of mind-cutting power.

"Don't do that," Katie hissed, and the pain and grief intensified. She gripped River's hand as tightly as she could, and River could only sob and shake. "Don't do that again. Understand?"

River gasped and shook her head. She wanted to nod, to agree, just to make her stop, but Katie held on.

"You won't do that again," Katie hissed. "You're _mine_, River. _Mine_."

The grief and guilt vanished. It wasn't a relief, however; it was like a sword buried in her stomach being ripped out. The emotions being forced into her mind then viciously removed left an agonizing hollow in her.

"Understand?" the little girl asked, and River shivered. She opened her mouth, gasping.

"Yes," River managed after a moment.

"Good," Katie said, and another alien, painful emotion flashed into River.

A surge of pleasure and happiness flowed into her, and it took everything River had not to scream at how _wrong_ and _right_ it felt.

"Keep doing what I say," Katie said, over the flood of pleasure and satisfaction. "Stand."

River started to rise, tears flowing down her face, and the little girl guided her up onto her feet. Katie bent over and scooped up Laertes, ad handed it back to River. The moment her fingers touched the wood, more of that hideous pleasure tingled into her, and River managed to form a coherent thought.

_have to get away before she makes me addic-_

A flicker of pain and horror and fear lanced through her, like a blade of white heat, which was then replaced by that same sickening happiness. The thoughts broke away at that, the angry child shattering them like glass.

"Stop trying to think for yourself," Katie hissed. "You're mine! You've _been_ mine."

She turned and looked down the corridor, but her presence was still there, still flooding River's thoughts, twisting them with jumbled, confusing, happy emotions, keeping her from thinking straight.

"Engineering," Katie muttered, and looked up to River. "Let's go."

River started moving without wanting to, and each step sent that ugly, horrible happiness through her.

* * *

"Looks kinda crappy," Jayne remarked as they approached the small space station. From the outside, Sirocco didn't look like much: two habitat wings attached to a central cylinder, with a docking ring above. Maybe a dozen ships were docks there, almost al of the being freighters in either decent or less repair. The sole exception was a long, sleek vessel that looked as out of place as Jayne in a dwarf village.

"Criminals don't terribly care about decoration," Wash agreed. "Though they love little geisha dolls . . . ."

"Blue Hands beat us here," Zoë said, pointing to the out of place ship.

"That's all kinds of bad," Wash added. "Didn't you say they had armor?"

"Power armor, from the looks of it," Jayne added, his tone grim. "But their heads ain't covered. Just don't let 'em get close."

"So, they're like zombies," Wash said, nodding. "Power armored government zombies. Shiny."

_Serenity_ closed in, Wash maneuvering them to dock as far from the Blue Hands' ship as possible. The docking authority was, unsurprisingly, not answering their hails, but it took Wash only a few moments to send the right signals to the docking computers and convince them to engage the automated docking systems. _Serenity_ slid into one of the slots, belly going flush with the extending docking collar.

"I'm not reading much in the way of life signs," Wash said, checking the sensors. "Lot of distress signals, some wildly shifting power sources. Internal damage, most likely."

"She's been busy," Zoë said, and picked up her rifle. She turned and started to the rear of the cockpit. "Met us down there once we get done docking."

Zoë and Jayne hurried downstairs, and a few moments later they were in the cargo bay. The others were all assembled with their weapons ready. Book was calm as usual, Inara held that controlled anxiety of someone who hated to fight but kept choosing to get involved, and Simon had that steely determinations he remembered from the last time they'd stormed an enemy structure to save family. Even Kaylee seemed ready, if possessed of the usual jitters. Zoë imagined she'd never get used to a fight.

The airlock hissed as it cycled closed. They readied their weapons, and Zoë swallowed her own anxiety, hiding it behind that mask of frozen control.

"Okay," Jayne said, as the airlock cycled open. "Let's get in there and save the _gorram_ day."

* * *

-

* * *

* * *

**_Author's Notes_****:** This particular arc is taking longer than I expected. I'm having to split apart chapters as they get too long and I keep adding stuff. (i.e. Zoe's conversation with Jayne at the start of this chapter wasn't in the original outline)

Until next chapter . . . .


	62. Chapter Three: To Ground

_**Chapter Three: To Ground**_

The docking wing of the station looked like a horror vid. Zoe took the lead, carefully stepping around wide puddles of fresh blood from the dozens of corpses strewn about the large, long corridor that formed the docking ring. The rest of the team followed them, weapons at the ready. Bodies lay crumpled around the corridor and in the hub area beyond, and despite the blood wept from their mouths and eyes and fingernails, none of them bore any visible wounds.

Jayne looked down at the corpses, and remembered Badger's warning a few months ago, and the screaming when they'd been in the bowels of Ariel's hospital. His torso ached from where the hammerblows of the Blue Hands' fists had pounded him.

"They're here," he said, sliding up beside Zoe. "Definitely Blue Hands work."

"Looks that way," she said, her words ice.

She glanced back at the rest of the team. Book was pointedly looking away from the bodies, murmuring under his breath. Wash looked haunted, while Kaylee and Inara were clearly horrified but holding on, keeping their eyes up and away from the strewn corpses. Simon seemed coldly detached, but a look into his eyes showed the disgust and anger he was holding in tight check.

They cut across the long corridor, moving past a power loader that had been stopped in mid-operation, the pilot slumped on the floor beside it. Zoe and Jayne kept point, while Book checked side passages. They reached the main corridor leading toward the center of the station, and Zoe waved Kaylee up.

The engineer threaded her way through the strewn bodies, while Zoe removed the panel next to the door's terminal interface. Kaylee stepped past Simon, who gave her a reassuring nod, and she slung her submachinegun. Her datapad came out a moment later, and she plugged it into the terminal's wiring.

"Gimme a sec," she murmured. As her fingers darted across the interface, Jayne and Book edged forward, checking the corridor beyond. Book's eyes narrowed, while Jayne muttered under his breath. Zoe stepped up beside them to see what they saw, Simon behind her.

The corridor beyond was strewn with bodies, many more than in the docking area. Unlike those, Zoe noted, they weren't lying in puddles of blood from ruptured orifices. They were tangled up, with vicious wounds and gunshot holes. Simon glanced over them, nodding, his words emotionless.

"Lots of stabbing injuries, bludgeoning, tearing," he said. "Consistent with hand weapons. These people died in close combat, not being shot in the back as they ran."

"Familiar sight in the Core, Doc?" Jayne muttered, and Zoe imagined he was as unnerved by the Doctor's icy tone as he was by the bodies.

"The Core has a lot of cities," Simon replied. "Cities have crime. It's a slow day in a Core hospital if we didn't get at least one gunshot trauma case."

"That's uncomforting," Jayne mused. "Always imagined the Core being prettier'n that."

"Crime is everywhere," Zoe said. "We proved that on Ariel. Millions of sensors just means they need to be more careful."

"I'm in," Kaylee called behind them, and Zoe dropped back to beside her, Book following. Wash and Inara huddled closer, while Simon and Jayne kept watch on the corridor.

"Find anything?" Wash asked. Kaylee shook her head, eyes tight with concentration.

"Network's a mess," she said. "Got damage all over, most internal sensors are out, or never were there in the first place. Um. Locators. No locators."

"Then how are we going to find them?" Wash asked, and Zoe looked up at Simon. The doctor frowned and then nodded, looking over the schematics.

"Someplace warm and dark and safe," he said. "Out of the way. That's where River would hide."

"Engineering," Kaylee said. "Got a whole twisty mess of corridors down there. Looks like a lot of heat-generating equipment too."

Zoe traced the path it would take them to get there. They'd have to pass through the center of the station, in the main promenade, and then down another corridor beyond to reach engineering.

"Looks about right," she said. "Okay, we'll split up from here. Wash, Kaylee, Inara, stay with the ship. Everyone else, on me."

* * *

Mr. Quinn watched with a curious sense of detached concern as one of his commandos shot his fellow in the head.

It was understandable and necessary. The man was succumbing to the Inducer's insanity, which was still threading through the station. Despite the latest iteration of security implants, more than half of their losses securing the station had been due to One-One-Nine's telesthetic influence and the subsequent euthanization. They now had a single three-man fireteam left; unfortunate but not unexpected.

The slain soldier dropped across another slumped corpse. With that, the promenade was clear, and the crowded station was now stacked with the dead.

"At the very least, this will prove that the Inducers are relevant," Quinn mused as they threaded their way through the corpses.

"Indeed," Eisen said. "Though I don't know whether they'll consider euthanizing or weaponizing them, with these results."

"The implants are significantly more effective this time around," Quinn added. "At least we have that."

The market was filled with corpses; most of the berserk criminals and bystanders had been nearby, and thus this part of the station had drawn the majority of the violence. Bodies were strewn everywhere, many shot, and many stabbed or beaten to death. Blood was everywhere, and the market stalls were shattered and broken. Many of the light fixtures were out, destroyed in the fighting, and electrical cables were strewn everywhere.

"I suspect they've retreated to engineering," Eisen added. "Both wings and the residential habitats have been searched and cleared. Maybe a dozen people still left, at most."

Quinn nodded, and opened his mouth to speak when his datapad chirped. He frowned, reaching into his pocket, and drew it out. The display showed an alert, from the docking computers whose feeds they'd linked to their 'pads.

"There's another ship docking," he said, and sighed. "We'll have to deal with them, too, unfortunately."

"What kind of ship?" Eisen asked, and Quinn frowned. He checked the registry, only to find none. Not surprising, out here. He checked the sensor logs.

His heart suddenly jumped into his chest.

"What is it?" Eisen asked.

"Firefly-class transport," Quinn said, head snapping up. Her clutched the datapad tightly, and a slow, serpentine smile spread across his face.

"It matches _Serenity_."

Eisen nodded, and looked up to the remaining commandos.

"Go after the escapees," he said. "I'll take our men and deal with the intruders. If we're lucky, we can secure both Tams and be on our way."

* * *

Engineering was stereotypically dark and stereotypically devoid of people; none of the gangs routinely sent people down here beyond Sirrocco's small cadre of trained technicians, because no one wanted to be breathing vacuum if violence erupted. That darkness and emptiness spelled security, at least to the two girls fleeing down the stairwell running to the station's bowels.

It wasn't easy going, mostly because Katie had to keep mentally prodding River to advance. Despite her mental control - no, _because_ of it - River was having a hard time staying balanced, and Katie had to push her to keep her moving. That was the problem with tightly controlling someone's thoughts: increased control meant decreased capacity to function.

Katie kept pushing her, mentally cursing as they moved down into the engineering level, amidst the darkened corridors and thrumming machinery. If River hadn't tried to resist, if she'd just followed her orders like a _good_ girl, they wouldn't be in this mess, with Katie having to push her every step.

Sweat began to run down Katie's face as they moved through the hot engineering levels. The lower sections of the station were a small maze of corridors running around the power core and other vital systems. It could be easy to get lost down here, but it would make it hard for the enemy to find them.

River was sweating too, and moving in a daze. Katie began to ease up on her control, letting River climb out of the fugue of forced pleasure and satisfaction. She wasn't sure whether the droplets running down her face were sweat, tears, or both, but either way, River was _obedient_ again, which was all that mattered.

"Largest heat concentration is around the climate-control units," River said after a few seconds. Katie nodded, and they started heading in that direction. She watched the older girl, and noted that River was starting to move normally now as she eased up her control, though she was still limping slightly from the shrapnel injury in her leg.

"Go," Katie ordered, and River began limping down the corridors that would run toward the climate-control area.

They got halfway there when River jerked, grabbing at her left leg. She fell against the wall, gasping, her face twisted up in sudden pain.

"What?" Katie asked. River shook her head, pushing herself off the wall after a couple of seconds, and Katie repeated the question, more forcefully.

River hesitated, and Katie scowled. She could feel it, distantly: the resurging obstainance that was convincing the Inducer that River might not be as suitable as she thought. Empaths were supposed to be easy to control, precisely because they were sensitive to emotions. But what would make an Empath react like that? She hadn't had a sympathetic reaction to anyone else being hurt on the station – that would require her reacting to someone she was very close to, mentally.

Like close friends, or family.

"Who is it?" Katie suddenly snarled. River's mind was flooded with a torrent of agonizing emotions, and dropped to her knees. Just as quickly, Katie dragged them back out, leaving the girl gasping and sobbing in front of her.

"Here," she murmured through shuddering breaths. "They're here."

"Who?" Katie asked. River shook her head.

More pain. It was the quickest way she'd learn.

"I . . . they're . . . ." River muttered, and looked up, meeting Katie's eyes.

Defiance gleamed in there, in spite of the hammering she'd beaten into River. It was weak and ineffective, like a man facing down an oncoming starship, but River was trying to fight back.

Katie crushed that defiance again, smashing it down under another barrage of painful grief and despair, leaving the older girl sobbing and almost insensate again. She cut off the assault as quickly as it began, and almost immediately, River raised eyes red from crying and matched her expression again with the defiant glare.

Before Katie could crush her again, River hissed something, and through her limited senses, Katie caught a single coherent thought amidst the chaos of her scrambled mind.

_I killed the last man who played with my emotions like you_

Katie saw the man in question in her mind, an average-looking man, not particularly appealing to look at and maybe overweight, in a button-up shirt that was white but stained red with his own blood, a pen shoved through his throat. It took Katie a moment to realize what River meant.

Kathryn Wade, to River, was the same as the people who had done this to both of them.

"No!" Katie suddenly screamed, and River collapsed completely as white-hot rage filled every piece of the child's body. She pounded River down with every hideous emotion she could think of at once. "I am not them! I am not them!"

River gasped, and her mouth opened.

"Yes . . . you . . . ." she managed through gritted teeth, before the assault overcame her. Katie could feel her defiance like a light breeze brushing against her - present and tangible but utterly useless at stopping her.

"You're mine!" Katie shouted, her voice a high-pitched screech. River sank to the grating, curling up, eyes wide with terror and shock as the inducer ripped through her mind, pouring destructive emotions that left acidic burns across her psyche. "Stop thinking and do what you're supposed to do!"

She felt it when River stopped trying to resist, like cobwebs no longer brushing against her face. As soon as she stopped fighting back, Katie cut off the assault and replaced with a flood of satisfaction. River curled up tighter, shaking her head for a few moments at the ugly, almost sickening conflict of sensations, before finally stopping. Katie held that for a few more seconds, and then leaned over her thrall.

"Get up, River," she ordered, her anger slowly subsiding once she'd reestablished control.

River looked up, and the resistance was there, that recognition that she was being controlled, but she stood up anyway. She got halfway to her feet, and then froze, alarm and terror suddenly spreading across her, replacing the distant anger and defiance.

"They're here," River whispered. "Hands of Blue, fingerwalking down the steps."

Katie thought she was lying for a moment, but at the edge of her senses, she picked up the tingling emptiness of something that should have been there, but _wasn't_.

Katie knew the intrusive emptiness of a Blank just as well as anyone else who'd been to the Academy, and just as much as River, she understood what it meant. A cold, heavy terror swept through her, and she released her emotional hold on River. The girl shot to her feet, and Katie took her hand. They both turned and started running.

Two levels up, Mister Quinn started down the stairs into the flickering, darkened corridors of engineering.

* * *

Zoe carefully stepped through the dead lining the markets, fighting to keep anger and horror under control as she waded through Katie's leftovers.

The promenade itself reminded her of similar such markets on other space stations, like the one where they'd picked up Tracy's coffin: wide open spaces and high-ceiling corridors, the walls and support struts lined with colorful market stalls bordering on the gaudy. Only this time, many of those stalls were stained dark, with slumped and torn bodies spread among them, and the colors had all shifted to variations on dull red thanks to the flickering emergency lights.

Book had stopped praying, Zoe realized, as they walked through the promenade, stepping over thickly-piled bodies. She wasn't sure whether he'd just given up on shepherding the souls to the hereafter (unlikely, she reasoned, as giving up wasn't in the preacher's vocabulary) or was simply focusing his efforts on keeping aware of their surroundings.

Zoe and Jayne took the lead, about ten meters ahead of Book and Simon. The two veteran fighters had their weapons up, searching for threats. They couldn't check everywhere, which was putting her on edge, and part of the reason why Book and Simon were so far back was to cover them in case someone snuck up on the lead pair without warning. Sweat beaded down her back from anxiety that she buried down with all of her other emotions. She spared a glance back at the trailing pair, and saw they were doing a good job checking their surroundings; Book had the experience of an old veteran, while Simon had taken to the off-duty instruction she and Jayne had heaped on the noncombatants better than she'd hoped.

She turned back, stepping over another body, and caught Jayne's eye. He nodded, short and curt, but she caught the grim set of his jaw, and recognized the tension there. The Hands were supposed to be here – so why hadn't they encountered them yet?

And Jayne was right to be wary. Of all of them, he was the only one who'd faced them in prolonged combat, and from what he'd told her, fighting them in close quarters was like trying to stop an engine breach with your face. The difficult lines of sight in the market would make it easy for them to flank or move up on them, let alone use the sonic device; she could only hope that Simon's presence would dissuade them from using that weapon.

They reached the end of the promenade, approaching the corridors that led to both the residential wings and engineering. Part of Zoe wanted to relax now that they were out of the potential ambush zone of the markets. The rest of her reminded her that the corridor, a long steel passageway lined with doors and side passages, was an excellent place for an ambush. The only cover was the doorframe that held the blast doors that sealed this part of the station in case of emergency.

Or, she realized with a cold settling in her gut, a chokepoint to cut them off from their ship. She glanced to Jayne, and he caught the alarm in her eyes, and she turned to book and Simon.

Dark shapes, ridged with armor and carrying assault weapons, emerged in the reddish lighting. Their weapons rose.

"Down!" she yelled, snapping up her rifle. Book dropped and spun around smoothly into cover, while Simon dove into the corridor and took cover behind the doorway. He'd barely gotten behind the lip of the frame when bullets ripped up the corridor, slamming into the walls and barrier.

Zoe snapped off a pair of shots, her rounds hitting the lead enemy soldier in the chest and deflecting off like spitwads. The commando ducked behind a market stall, and the others followed suit, fanning out to get a good line of fire on the doorway. Jayne shouldered Vera and the heavy rifle thundered in the confined space, and Book fired off a quick pair of shots, forcing one of the commandos into cover. A heartbeat later, Jayne snarled, sidestepping. Blood erupted from his left thigh.

"_Gorrammit_ I'm hit!" he snarled. He managed to stumble down beside Simon, who opened his medical kit almost by reflex.

Zoe fired another burst as Simon drew his equipment, and Vera thundered in the tight confines, the rifle's report beating on Zoe's ears. Jayne rose to one knee, biting out curses while blood poured over the deck.

For a few seconds, the two groups traded shots, but neither of them could get any real advantage. The Hands' troops were in worse cover but their heavy armor was high-grade assault gear designed for boarding actions in vacuum; it rated better than the civilian-grade weapons most of _Serenity's_ crew carried, so their bullets were just bouncing off. Vera was the only gun with enough punch to get past that armor. On the other hand, the blast door's jutting frame was solid and wide enough that all four of the crew had good cover. No one on either side could risk leaning out long enough to draw a bead on an enemy without bringing a mess of fire on them.

Grenades were a different matter, and as she watched one of the commandos leaned out and his arm pumped. Zoe shouted a warning, and they ducked for cover, not having time to evade the grenade. The angle was all wrong, however, and the distance too far. The commando couldn't get enough of an arc due to the ceiling, and the grenade fell short a few meters. It rolled onto the other side of the blast doors' frame and a roar of shuddering force hammered the huddling group. The deck shivered from the concussive blast and their ears were left faintly ringing, but they were otherwise unharmed. The grenade hadn't used shrapnel, and the concussive force had been absorbed by the door frame and walls.

"Too damn close," Jayne yelled over the reverberations, Vera punctuating his sentence. "This cover's bad, Zoe! They start throwin' better and we're humped!"

"Shepherd," Zoe called. "Covering fire. Jayne, Doc, on my go, move back fifteen meters to the doors down the corridor!"

She heard acknowledging yells, and fired another burst, which smashed through the wall of one of the market stalls but didn't penetrate the armored figure behind it.

"Go!" she yelled, and fired three quick bursts at each of the Hands' soldiers. Book answered her with his own fire, single shots that nonetheless kept the enemy suppressed for a couple of seconds; as heavily-armored as they were, they weren't willing to risk a lucky shot penetrating their armor.

Behind her, Jayne rose to his feet, bitching in pain, while Simon followed suit. Both of them moved with speed and control; Doc was becoming a hell of a lot calmer under fire, she realized. Then again, he'd been in enough gunfights by now, and he was no fool. Surgery had to be pretty stressful too, and he'd mastered that skill.

Zoe shook herself out of that heartbeat's worth of thought, and fired her weapon again, the rifle beating against her shoulder in that familiar sensation of tightly-focused recoil. She felt it before the rifle ran low on bullets, and the last three rounds that exited the barrel were tracers: her warning that she was about to be empty. Book's fire momentarily intensified as she dropped back, ejecting the spent magazine and loading a new one into place. Behind her, she heard the thunder of Vera as Jayne fired another couple of shots, and his voice rolled up the passage toward her.

"We're good, Zoe! Get yer ass back here!"

"Preacher," Zoe called, and he nodded. She leaned out and fired another burst, while Book reloaded. Return fire slammed into the bulkhead a few centimeters from her face, but she ignored it, instead working to keep the Hands' commandos in place.

"Ready," Book called back to her.

"Jayne, suppression!"

Jayne and Simon opened up at the same time, the doctor's smaller weapon lost in Vera's howl of violence. Book and Zoe scrambled backward as rounds whipped past in both directions, working to stay under the incoming and outgoing fire. It was a challenge for Zoe, moving at such a low position while heavy with child, but she crouch-ran to the next point of cover.

Behind her, another grenade exploded, this one a fragmentation device. Metal whizzed around the corridor, deflecting off walls, decking, and the ceiling, but the device was a low-powered weapon designed for room-to-room combat in a fragile space station, and the grenade had fallen too short. The shrapnel never got close, and she slid into cover unharmed beside Jayne.

She spun around, weapon rising, and expected to see the commandos storming forward to the cover they'd just abandoned. Instead, shots chased after them, but the Hands' commandos for their part stayed back, firing upon her team only enough to keep them in cover.

Zoe shouldered her weapon again and continued to fire, but the analytical part of her mind began asking why they were keeping their distance. It only took her a few seconds to come to a disturbing conclusion. They weren't trying to kill them; they were just pinning her team in place while . . . . what? What were they planning?

And where were the Hands themselves?

* * *

River had a thought of her own amidst the calmness and noise that was being forced into the corridors of her mind. She pulled Katie along, the younger girl's control slipping as fear began to settle into her. It was one thing to know, intellectually, that the

_Two by two_

was there, but it was another thing altogether to brush minds with the **empty**. The last time she'd touched that **emptiness** had been on Ariel, while the _two by two _on Niska's ship had simply been implanted to resist being sensed. Here, there was **a nothing **moving through the corridors, only tangible by its lack of presence.

The **empty** lurked, insubstantial and difficult to pin down. It was a familiar **empty**, an **empty **that sent frigid electrical terror through her guts as it closed in on them, and that same terror gripped Katie. The fear arcing through the little girl caused her control to slip, and even with their hands intertwined, River was able to work out a thought of her own through the chaos.

_Direct confrontation will not result in victory. Fighting an Inducer on the emotional and mental level is like wrestling a battleship. It would be preferable to-_

They burst through the doors leading into the life support deck. Hot, dry air filled the room, pumped out by the processors as they caught moisture in the air and recycled it into the water systems. River felt sweat running down her brow in seconds as they weaved through the pipes and hissing, rumbling machinery. Suddenly, Katie pulled up short, and before River could think, she felt a jab of respect and deference and obedience lance through her, the kind of ingrained and automatic obedience a parent demanded of a child or an officer pounded into a recruit.

"Find a safe place," Katie ordered, and River responded immediately, quashing any attempt to resist before it could rise up. She tried reaching out, through walls dripping in blood and ringing with terror and hate, searching for a place that Katie would be safe in. She dance dup and down passages, flying a kilometer's worth of corridors in a heartbeat, seeing bodies, torn, shot, stabbed

_shot_

A thought that was her own slipped through terror-conceived cracks in Katie's control.

"He's closing," River said, and she knew Katie could sense the empty of the Blank as he stalked through the passages.

_she doesn't know how far away_

"We have to hide!" Katie hissed, fear still flowing through her veins, directing her actions and thoughts as inexorably as she directed River's. A need to protect Katie filled her, to safeguard the child and destroy anything threatening her.

"No time, he'll be here soon!" River said, and it was only faintly a lie. She could see the edges of the _empty_ more clearly now, pick out where he was. Katie's limited senses couldn't. She didn't know how close he was.

"Weapons are down the corridor," River began, but Katie shook her head.

"We can't fight them!" she almost shrieked. Fear was giving way to a hurricane of panic, and her control kept slipping further. "He's Blank! I can't control him, you can't predict him! He speaks and then we're down and he'll send us back, and-"

"I can stop him!" River cut her off. It was a calculated risk. If Katie wasn't too terrified to be angry that she was being-

"But how?" Katie asked. Tears were forming in the frightened little girl's eyes.

"Weapons," River said. "I can stop him. I can keep him busy while you hide and run."

Katie looked up at River, and the Empath could see her thoughts like flashing signal lights. She shifted from terror to hope to worry to concern to an instant of suspicion to a flicker of frightened worry for River, to desperate hope again.

"Stop him," Katie ordered, and that instinctive need to obey filled River. She nodded, taking a step back, and Katie reluctantly released River.

The order she'd given her remained, and River felt herself start running up through the life support deck, weaving through hissing machines, her throat dry and sweat pouring down her face. She went straight toward a corpse of an engineer who still had a gun, who'd died in close combat and whose last moments she could taste like liquid rot in the back of her throat.

But as she ran, River found her own thoughts leaking in. She had to protect Katie, and Katie was still there, still spurring her on, but she didn't flood River with false but real emotions and needs.

Protect Katie. Destroy whoever wants to hurt her. Then

_Escape_

She stopped over the dead man's corpse, his body cooling from the violence of his death. The reek of murder hung over the air, both real and intangible, but River pushed through it, rolling his body over. Her fingers closed over the weapon held in death-grip-tight hands, and she pulled the weapon free. It still had a mostly-full magazine. Good. She would need this. She would need it to be

_functional_

River blinked, a thought of her own pushing through the haze, and she rose, pistol in hand, sheathed Laertes in the other. Her awareness reached out, brushing against Katie's commanding presence as she hunted for a safe place to hide. It rose up, River's senses touching the decks above, and familiar pages turned and rustled above, pages that through the controlling haze and calm made hope erupt inside of her.

And twenty meters away, there was **nothing**. **Nothing** she could see or sense or predict. Just a blank.

Fear arced through her, shocking every nerve and pore and cell in her body, but River had to obey. The control pushed aside the fear, and River clutched her weapons in fingers that ached from tension.

She limped up the hallway, to meet the **empty** and to kill it.

* * *

"Jayne!" Zoe yelled as she fired a carefully-aimed shot at one of the commandos. The rounds hit low in the chest, deflecting off the man's stomach armor, but otherwise did nothing more than force him deeper into cover. "Jayne, something's not right!"

"They ain't movin' up," Jayne said, nodding. "Didn't use those sonic things either."

As he fired another couple of shots, Zoe ran over what was happening with what she knew about the enemy and their objectives. She suddenly had a horrifying thought, and triggered her radio.

"Wash!" she yelled into the microphone. "They've got us cut off! _They're heading for the ship!"_

* * *

Wash was doing his best to not look at the corpses. Kaylee at least had something to occupy her attention, as she was still working on the station's computers and trying to convince them to give her a better look at what was going on. The pilot didn't have that luxury, as while he was good on the mechanical side of things, he wasn't good with computers. Machines seemed to talk to Kaylee, and while she was a mechanic first and foremost, she was a decent computer specialist when she put her head to it.

The pilot instead kept a rough patrol in the docking area, centered around the derelict power loader in the middle of the room, while Inara kept watch on the corridor leading out of the docking sector of the station. She was doing her best to keep from looking at the piled bodies, and he didn't blame her. He'd seen some horrible stuff in his time, but didn't want to add anymore to the nightmares.

This place was going to be showing up in his dreams, he bet.

The radio in his ear suddenly chirped, and Inara looked up. A moment later, a burst of static shot through it, and he grunted, wincing at the sudden noise. She did the same, while Kaylee looked up at the sudden noise.

"Zoe?" he asked. He thought he could pick out her voice in the hissing static, but couldn't make out any words. "Zoe, repeat that? We're getting some interference." He looked up to Inara. "'Nara, you getting anything?"

"No," she replied. "Just static on mine, too."

"That's bad," Wash said, straightening. "Shouldn't be any interference, a station this small. Might be jamming."

"Should we go find them?" Inara asked. Wash shook his head.

"Bad idea," he said. "Someone needs to cover our escape route in case everything goes to hell."

Inara was about to reply when they heard Kaylee gasp. They spun toward her, weapons in hand, and saw her duck back through the door into the docking area, data pad clattering to the deck.

An instant later, a gunshot slammed into the wall beside her.

Wash dashed up to the door, Inara a step ahead of him.

"Its one of them!" Kaylee gasped, fumbling for her weapon. Wash poked his head out a hair, and caught a glimpse of a suit-wearing man striding down the passage, calmly stepping over corpses, with a pistol raised in blue-covered hands. He didn't get more than that, as the man fired again, the round barely whizzing past Wash's scalp. He dove back behind cover. Another round lanced through the space where his eye had been an instant earlier.

For a moment, Wash considered shooting back, but the Hand was frighteningly accurate. He wouldn't stand a chance against him.

Then an idea hit Wash.

"Kaylee, can you seal the corridor?" he asked, and she nodded. She scooped up her datapad, while Wash and Inara leveled their weapons at the door. If the Blue Hand appeared, they'd have, well, not a _good_ chance of taking him down, but _maybe_ a chance.

Wash didn't need to worry, because within seconds the blast door slid closed with a loud, heavy hydraulic hiss.

"Okay, Kaylee, clear the atmo," Wash said, shaking slightly from adrenaline he hadn't even realized was pulsing through him. Kaylee nodded and started typing on the data pad, brow furrowing in concentration. He knew why; removing atmosphere was always harder because one needed to bypass safety interlocks. You weren't supposed to be trying to choke people to death on vacuum, after all.

"Almost got it," she said after a few seconds. "Gimme a 'sec longer and I'll get it-"

She was cut off when the blast door was blown to ribbons.

Debris flashed across the room, and an immense weight and force pounded Wash headlong in the chest, lifting him up off his feet and tossing him backward. He hit and rolled, blackness swimming across his vision, and his ears were filled with the distant roaring of the ocean. He knew that sound well enough to understand that he'd been briefly deafened by the detonation.

Hoban Washburn wasn't the best of fighters, but he was good at keeping his wits about him when everyone else often lost theirs - an important trait in a pilot. He scrambled to his feet, fighting off the disorientation, and grabbed the submachinegun he'd been carrying. He spun around the room, and spotted Inara - prone, stunning, bleeding from an injury on the side of her head that looked bad. He spotted Kaylee, near the door, behind some transport crates. She looked dazed and shocked, but not injured badly. Her weapon was nowhere to be seen.

And striding through the door he'd just blown to pieces with a breaching charge was the Hand of Blue. He turned, surveying the room, and spotted Wash as he drunkenly rose to his feet, brandishing his machinegun like it was a saber and he was some swashbuckling, floral-pattern-shirted pirate.

Wash tried to aim the weapon, but the world was spinning, and in a heartbeat the Hand had crossed the dozen meters between them, blurring across the distance. An arm swung down, slamming into Wash's weapon and batting it out of his hand, leaving his right forearm completely numb. The pilot tried to punch the Hand, but the man weaved around it, and a blue-gloved fist hit him in the cheek.

The world went white for the briefest of moments, and he found himself stumbling sideways. His shoulder hit the side of the power loader, and he spun back toward the Hand, fear and anger and savage desperation surging through him. The Hand strode toward him with all the concern of a salesman handing out a business card, and Wash hurled himself at the man.

Two blue fists blurred into his sternum, and Wash dropped to his knees, gasping and unable to feel anything in his chest. Iron-hard fingers shot down and closed around his throat, and the pilot's breath cut off. The Hand squeezed just enough to constrict the blood flowing into Wash's brain, and then leaned down toward him.

A cylinder was in the suited man's off hand, and at the press of a button, two thin prongs emerged from the device.

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** Well, that took too long to write. And it ends on another cliffhanger!

Next chapter is the final one for this arc, excluding the epilogue, of course.

Until next chapter . . . .


	63. Chapter Four: Cold

_**Chapter Four: Cold**_

Mr. Quinn's first warning that anyone else was in the corridor was a bullet slamming into his chest. He jerked slightly at the impact and raised his forearm in front of his face. Another round deflected off his armored limb, followed by two more. An instant later, he heard the faintest whisper of noise on the metal deck. He spared a glance over his upraised arm.

She was down the hallway, barely visible in the red emergency lights by her movement. He only caught a glimpse of her as she ducked down a side passage, but he'd recognize Empath One-Three-Seven anywhere.

The warning klaxons were too loud for the codephrase to work on her at this distance, but he shouted it anyway as broke into a charge down the passage after her. As he reached the doorway, he called it out a second time and spun around the frame.

The next passage was empty save for the russet illumination. He started down the corridor, sweeping his eyes up at the low ceiling. That was one of the first things they were taught in training, as the sensitives liked to hide overhead in ambush. She wasn't overhead, but he kept sweeping, pistol in hand with its flashlight on. He noted two branching side corridors about halfway down the passage.

Mr. Quinn advanced to within five meters of the nearest side passage, and froze. He listened intently over the klaxons, and checked the ceiling again. An instant later, he spun around.

Behind him, one of the sections of decking had slid up and to the side, and One-Three-Seven was sliding out of it like a spider and moving toward him with liquid grace.

Mr. Quinn opened his mouth to speak, but she was on him before he could call out her code phrase. His arms weaved before him as she struck, aiming her rapid, flowing blows at his head. She knew he was practically invulnerable from the neck down due to his armor, and attacking high around his face would disrupt efforts to speak. Her arms thudded against his as he moved in concert, his own blurring limbs intercepting hers.

The exchange lasted for less than three seconds, before she suddenly broke away, sliding backwards, loose hair trailing after her, and her pistol swept up at his head. Quinn dropped into a crouch, and the corridor thundered with noise as the gunshot erupted in tight quarters. He leapt toward her, blurring across the three steps that separated them, and his knee rose into her sternum.

She twisted sideways, rolling with the blow, and turned the awkward dodge into a roll underneath and around him. He spun with her as she moved, arm sweeping down in a crushing blow that clipped her shoulder as she skittered past, and she was sent spinning sideways. He followed her, opening his mouth to speak.

"_Eta karum-"_ he started, before she fired her weapon.

The pistol shot never got near him, but that wasn't the point. The weapon's report muffled the rest of the sentence, ruining the memetic phrase before it would reach her ears.

_I always said the code should have been shorter, _he thought with annoyance as he followed after her. She kept dancing around his blows as he took the offensive, dodging and twisting away from impacts that would individually have knocked the girl insensate. He was surprised at how effectively she was able to defend herself; all of the assassins were trained to heavily exploit their telesthetic powers to predict and outmaneuver their opponents. That had the ancillary benefit of making them vulnerable to Blanks who they couldn't read.

One-Three-Seven had apparently grown beyond that limitation.

It wasn't enough to make up for the difference. With his powered armor augmenting his movements, Mr. Quinn was stronger and faster than the girl, and his blurring arms pushed her back down the corridor. She kept twisting and ducking to evade his blows, but it was only a matter of-

She pivoted in place, contorting around a hook that whipped past her face, and began to duck under his arm. As she did so, Quinn's knee flashed up into her chest with a deep, shuddering impact. He watched with detached satisfaction as River Tam was lifted off her feet and sent tumbling down the corridor. She hit the grating and rolled for a couple of meters before coming to a halt, where she lay, stunned by the sudden force behind the blow.

Mr. Quinn strode toward the girl, hoping she wasn't seriously injured by the blow, and opened his mouth to speak her code phrase and put an end to all this nonsense.

* * *

Zoe cursed, bullets whipping past her.

"Radio's not working," she yelled. "I can't raise the second team!"

"They might be goin' for the ship," Jayne said beside her, sliding back and reloading. "But I don't think that's all."

She fired a couple of shots past him.

"What do you mean?"

"I think these _hun dans _are just pinning us down, making us waste time and bullets," he said slapping a fresh magazine into Vera. "They're goin' after River _and _the ship."

Zoe felt a chill settle over her. He rifle ran low, spitting out tracers. She dropped back to change magazines. More fire lanced down the corridor.

"Can you and the preacher hold them?" she asked the mercenary, and he gritted his teeth and nodded. Vera spoke again, and her voice was loud. "Okay. We're going to head down there and see if we can dig 'em out, and maybe find a way back around to hit 'em from behind.

"Doc!" Zoe yelled, and he looked up from his spot near Book, across the corridor. The red emergency lighting painted his pale skin a light russet color. "You and me are going down to engineering!"

He paused, then nodded as he figured out her reasoning.

"Preacher," Zoe called, and Book nodded in acknowledgement. "Stay here with Jayne, keep 'em off our back."

"Understood," the Shepherd said, and punctuated his words with another gunshot.

"Cover us on my mark," she ordered. "Mark!"

Gunfire erupted in the corridor as Jayne and Book opened up, keeping the commandos at the end of the passage pinned down for the few seconds she and Simon needed to rise and start moving to the rear of the hallway and down the passage that led to the engineering deck.

"She's down there," Zoe said, pausing at the top of the darkened, red-lit stairs. "Both of them."

"Are you ready?" Simon asked, and she nodded, not certain if she felt up to the task that she was about to force on herself. Confronting either Katie or River down the sights of her rifle was not something she wanted to do.

She looked up at Simon, meeting his eyes, and saw the worry and fear in there, for both his sister and for Kaylee.

Worry lanced through her as she looked down the stairs to engineering. Downstairs, she would be facing the child that had torn up her mind and played spaceball with it. Upstairs, her husband was likely facing one of those government killers, along with Inara and little Kaylee.

_Nothing I can do about it now but find them and get a way back around_, she thought, and started down the stairs. Simon followed her, and they descended into the hot, flickering bowels of the station. _Just have to trust they can handle themselves._

_

* * *

_

Wash knew what the dangerous little cylinder meant, and how much _go se_ he was in when it came out. He hadn't seen it before, but Jayne's descriptions and a bit of deductive reasoning were all he needed to put two and two together.

The Hand of Blue stared down at him, emitter in hand, and spoke. He sounded awfully human for a power-armor-clad government zombie-assassin.

"Where is Doctor Tam?" he asked.

"Gugh," Wash managed through his constricted throat. _Master of wit, thou art, Wash_.

He could breathe, just barely, but the Hand was, as the name implied, squeezing his neck to the point that he could barely get anything out, let alone anything intelligible. Inconsiderate.

While part of Wash was focusing on witty comebacks and mulling over his inability to deliver them due to pressing asphyxiation, the rest of him was looking for a way out of this quite distressing situation. His eyes flicked over the Hand of Blue's shoulder, and he saw an opportunity.

The Hand lightened his grip just enough to let Wash breathe, and repeated the question. Wash summoned up every ounce of flippant disregard he could muster and threw it at him.

"There's something . . . hilarious . . . You don't know about that . . . ."

The Hand scowled, raised his other fist, and slammed it down into Wash's face. The impact was a flash of white, and the pilot felt something in his face giving way, and agony rolled up and down his head and neck.

He regained his senses a couple of seconds later, and felt hot and sticky blood rolling down over his mouth.

"Ow," he gasped.

"Where is Doctor Tam?" the Hand demanded a third time.

"The answer," Wash managed through the blood and pain and choking (it said something about how bad things were when being choked to death was the least pressing of his concerns) "is metaphorical."

The Hand's eyes narrowed.

"It's like having a large hunk of sharpened steel shoved into your lower back, understand?"

An instant later, Inara sent a bolt from her torque bow into the Hand's back.

The Hand spun the instant the bolt hit, reacting with liquid speed, or maybe that was just the fact that he had half a meter of steel stabbing into his guts. His grip loosened around Wash's neck, and the pilot wrenched as hard as he could, breaking free of the blue-fingered choke-hold. His arms slammed down on the Hand's other limb, the one holding the supremely deadly little cylinder, and to his pleasant surprise the device was knocked clear of the assassin's fingers. It clattered to the floor and began to roll away.

Behind the Hand, Inara pivoted with her torque bow, following the Hand as he twisted around and lost his grip on weapon and pilot. The weapon's built-in magazine loaded another bolt, and she drew the string back to fire.

The Hand's arm blurred up as she fired, and intercepted the bolt. It was knocked aside and sent spinning away, the arrowhead having drawn a long line across the Hand's forearm where it struck and sliced through both fabric and the armor beneath. The first bolt was lodged in the Hand's back, most of its length still outside the assassin's body; only about ten centimeters had managed to penetrate through the armor, and it didn't appear to have hit anything vital.

Wash skittered after the cylinder, knowing that if the Hand got his, er, hands on it, it would ruin their day quite decisively. The Hand glanced toward him, then at Inara - who was already loading another bolt - and turned toward her. She fired another shot at he started toward her, but the assassin slipped sideways, blurring around the bolt, and he shot toward her, covering the dozen meters that separated them in a heartbeat. Inara's bow dropped to the floor, and she reached to her side, drawing the short sword sheathed at her hip. The weapon rang free of its sheath and sliced up into the Hand as he closed in.

Wash reached the little death-cylinder-thingy. He didn't have much time, so he did the first thing that came to mind: he raised his boot and slammed it down as hard as he could. The device was small and delicate-looking, so that should have done the trick.

Naturally, that meant that when his foot hit the device, it bounced right off without leaving a mark.

"Motherless son of a bitch!" Wash hissed, slamming his foot down with every other syllable. That wasn't working. He spun around, looking for a weapon to hit the thing with. He spotted a toolkit nearby on one of the crates, with a huge, heavy wrench inside. Perfect.

Across the room, the Hand took a step back as Inara's blade flashed up, and it sliced through the front of his shirt and bisected his tie. He shot into the gap she'd left, but she slid a step back, putting her weight on that foot, and the blade dropped back into a defensive guard that nearly caused the Hand to impale himself. His arm snapped down at the blade, but Inara weaved it underneath his blow with practiced ease and sent a riposte into the Hand's gut, forcing him to step back again. She slid forward, blade flashing in a quick cut-stab-cut combination, and each stroke forced the Hand to retreat, unable to effectively block her blows. His armor seemed to be good against bullets but not against blades, much like Kevlar, and he didn't seem to be trained in how to fight a swordsman (or -woman, in this case) with his bare hands.

The Companion came at him with another thrust, and the Hand backed away again, only to hit a heavy transport crate with his lower back. Inara slid forward once more in a swift lateral cut. The Hand twisted sideway, and the blade slashed across his flank, drawing a long and low wound through his armor. Blood ran freely.

Then the Hand's fingers closed around the side of the packing crate, and he wrenched it up off the deck with a flex of his augmented strength. Just as the Hand wasn't trained in fighting a sword-wielding foe, Inara wasn't trained in fighting heavy, half-ton packing crates. Before she could effectively react, he slammed it into Inara and hurled her off her feet. The Hand dropped the crate and dashed toward her, reaching the Companion almost before she'd hit the deck, and raised a foot to stomp her in the back.

Wash hefted the wrench and then heard the impact as the Hand slapped Inara with half a ton of metal. He spun toward them and saw the Hand, maybe ten meters away, closing on her.

"Inara!" he yelled, and used the only weapon he had on hand. The wrench in his hand went tumbling end over end across the room and hit the Hand in the middle of his back, just above where the bolt was lodged, and took him clean off his feet as he raised his foot. He tumbled sideways and rolled over the bolt, and the assassin cried out in pain as the metal shaft was twisted around in his insides. Wash almost cheered, but then the man was shooting up to his feet, anger clearly written across his face. One of his arms reached around behind his back, and with gritted teeth he tore the bloody bolt free.

The Hand's arm pumped, and the bolt went careening across the deck toward Wash. He yelped and duck, the shaft barely missing him. The pilot started to rise up, only to see the Hand grab another crate like it was made of foam and chuck it straight at Wash.

This one didn't miss, and the heavy metal box struck him dead center in the chest. The breath exploded out of his lungs as he was tossed backwards, and he rolled across the deck for an instant, his chest pounding with sudden, acute agony.

He started to rise, and then saw the Hand blurring across the deck in a burst of incredibly unfair speed, and then stop.

The bottom fell out of Wash's stomach as the Hand bent down and scooped up the death-cylinder-thingy, and raised the device.

* * *

Mr. Quinn saw her bleary eyes, and nodded as he opened his mouth. She was conscious. Good. The code phrase would definitely put her under, then.

"_Eta karum n-"_

Another gunshot rang out in the tight confines of the corridor, coming from one of the doorways. Quinn jerked, but the round bounced off the wall a meter to his side. He spun toward the sound, and saw a little dark-haired girl with a pistol far too big for her tiny hands standing in the doorway.

"River!" Inducer One-One-Nine yelled. "Get up!"

Quinn started into the Inducer's code phrase immediately, a line of Japanese language, but he didn't get through the first syllable before One-Three-Seven was rising to her feet and raising her pistol. She fired a single shot, cutting through the phrase before it could really begin, and leapt at him. Quinn whirled toward her, only to be slammed into the wall by the force of her impact; augmented strength didn't mean he was able to ignore physics.

Quinn snapped his arm down at her, but she'd already withdrawn and started bolting back across the corridor toward One-One-Nine. Just before she reached the Inducer, however, the child yelled something. Tam twisted in place immediately and started running down the hallway toward the other door. Quinn pushed himself off the wall and started toward One-One-Nine, but Wade gave him a cold smile and reached up inside the doorway.

The door slammed down between them, sealing them off.

Quinn cursed under his breath and looked through the door Tam had run through, which still hung open. It was obvious that Wade meant for him to go chasing after One-Three-Seven instead of targeting her. That was in her methodology; the little sociopathic lunatic sacrificed pawns before ever risking herself.

Of course, Wade herself was of lower priority, but she didn't realize that. Tam was the priority here, and always had been. Bringing in (or taking down) One-One-Nine was always a secondary concern.

Mr. Quinn started after River Tam, chasing her through the door she'd disappeared into.

* * *

Zoe and Simon heard gunfire as they descended into the engineering deck.

"Right track," the doctor said, and she nodded in agreement. They raised their weapons, staying close together, checking the doorways and side passages as they advanced. Simon noticed that their tempo moved faster as they descended into the engineering sector.

More gunfire, up ahead, echoing down the corridors. Simon tried to place where it was coming from, but couldn't.

They needed to cover more ground, faster.

"Should we split up?" he asked her. Zoe's response was a River-grade "You're _gorram_ stupid" look. He got the message.

"Keep moving," she added, and started forward even faster. Simon followed, swallowing. His throat was dry, but his hands were the steady surgeon's hands. He'd be ready - for whatever happened.

* * *

_Fear clawed_ at River, a **beast** on her shoulders and _wrapping around her torso_. The _empty_ terrified her, but there was worse.

She could _hear_ the pages of Zoe and Simon, rustling, close. Too close. In danger.

Katie's commands rang _like bells_ in her mind. **Protect Katie**. She knew Simon and Zoe were here to take her home and away from Katie, and that realization and the relief it _spawned_ in her chest _slammed_ into the **orders** and the two clawed and bit at each other in the pits of her brain.

The _empty_ chased after her, but he didn't know the corridors like she did. She _expanded_ out into the engineering deck, seeing every passage like it was written out in front of her on a schematic. She knew how to lose the _empty Hand_.

That wasn't the problem. She _saw_ Simon and Zoe, hurrying through the passages, their weapons clutching in tight, battle-scarred fingers, advancing together down the corridors-

"_Should we split up?" he asked. Zoe's response was a River-grade "You're gorram stupid" look. He got the message._

-and kept hunting for River and Katie and the Hand they knew was down here. She had to

_lead them away_

River twisted and bolted down another corridor, and a few seconds later she flashed past Zoe and Simon, running behind them.

_get them away from the Hand, get them away from Katie, protect and _escape but escape is not an _option except it is __stop listening to her__ but she's there and __**she's right**__ and she's __**inside **__and she's _

She heard her name_, echoed_ and redoubling off the walls, followed by boots on-

_the empty was close. aware. he was faster than her._

She weaved and dodged, following the passages in her mind, tracing an evasive pattern that should throw him off. Doors and corridors flew past her.

She didn't know _how much time had passed_, but she slowed down when she reached one of the rooms. Water recycling. Poor smell, low visibility. Cooler than the rest of the engineering deck.

She waited in the darkness, exhaustion _rolling up her legs and arms_. The pain in her forearms and shoulder and torso met the **weariness,** and they _began an intermingling social party to celebrate making River feel miserable._

The _empty_ lurked, somewhere nearby. She couldn't pin it down, but it _was close_. It was **following her**. It - no, _**he**_, he was closing in.

She clutched the pistol in her hand, and wished she could draw Laertes. She _searched her surroundings_, devising attack plans if he came through the doorway. The stinking machines made her nostrils burn faintly with the stench of sewage.

**Part** of her wanted to go out and meet him. Katie needed to be protected. Katie needed to be safe. But the rest of River _**railed**_ against that notion, told her that Katie was bad, dangerous, violent, unpredictable, _psychopathic_, **murderous**.

_the empty _drew closer, the edges of his presence tingling the surface of her skin. She looked around for Zoe and Simon, but couldn't see them. The _empty_ was too close, too intent.

She took a step toward the door. Katie wanted the Hand to be dead, and she needed to deal with him before he found Zoe or Simon, but every step she took toward the door made more fear _nestle_ within her. Every time she'd faced them, they'd beaten her, here and at the Academy and on Niska's ship

_electrical sparks, __**poisoned blades**__, sick __thoughts and __laughter, _pain **in**_** the arms and chest **__**and legs**__** and **_**hands**_and he was __hurting beside her__ and __**they were green and **_**diseased minds**_** that **__**delighted in the**__** pain and power**__ and_

She gasped as the memories flooded in unbidden and unwelcome. Thinking of Niska's ship sent _ghosts of unrestrained terror_ **and pain** arcing across her skin, of the _horrible minds pressing_ in on her as they'd held her, **twisted and evil** and-

_the empty_ was close. She could feel him, almost thought she could hear his boots on the deck

But Katie wanted her to find him but she **didn't**** want to find him** **and he needed to** die _to protect Katie and __**that**__ should_ have _been all that __mattered but Zoe and__ Simon_ were _**close and River**_ didn't know **WHAT SHE WAS **_**SUPPOSED TO DO**_

The door opened. She shrieked, _through the pain_ and the _confusion_ that **was slopping through her like wet concrete**, and snapped up her pistol at the intrusion.

"Riv-"

The gun **sang** in her fingers.

She jerked. _Sympathetic agonized_ up through her arm.

River opened her eyes, and peered down the sights of the gun.

There was a figure in the doorway, slumping sideways, blood running down through his shirt, eyes wide in surprise and confusion that _floated around him like oil from a __leaking __tank._

Her breath caught in her throat. Choking.

". . . Simon?"

* * *

Jayne and Book were running low on ammunition. Between them, they had maybe two magazines each, and had to pick their shots carefully. There were hundreds of spent casings rolling around the corridor floors, but to no real effect beyond prolonging the stalemate.

The Shepherd knew that their position couldn't be held forever. The Hands' troops seemed to still have plenty of ammunition, and their armor and numbers meant they could potentially overrun the pair if they pressed the attack.

Then, as if reading their thoughts, the commandos suddenly emerged from cover and sent a storm of fire at the two men. Jayne and Book ducked back into cover, rounds slamming down around and past them, and the commandos advanced while firing.

When they ran out of round sand had to change magazines, the trio dropped back into cover, now a few meters closer.

"Can't let 'em do that again," Jayne called.

"Agreed," Book nodded. "One more advance like that and they can use grenades again."

He'd barely finished speaking when two of the commandos opened fire, loosing long bursts, while the third ran for a market stall that would give him a good position to throw grenades into the corridor. He rose and sprinted, the movement catching Book's eye.

He reacted faster than thought. The rifle rang in Book's hands three times, the first and third rounds hitting the commando in the shoulder and torso armor, respectively. The second shot, however, hit a crease in the plating. He didn't see how the round impacted, but the commando jerked sideway as he reached cover, stumbling into the market stall.

Jayne, aiming carefully through Vera's scope, put two rounds through the reeling commando. One went through his throat, the other through his faceplate, the latter chased by blood and flying armor-glass. The commando jerked back and tumbled behind the market stand he had been trying to hide behind.

Guilt, an old and familiar guilt, ran through Book as he watched the man fall back behind cover, to never rise again. He muttered a plea for forgiveness and mercy, lost amidst Vera's thunder and fire.

Book dropped back into cover as the two remaining commandos poured fire down the passage. Despite his misgivings, at least now they couldn't try to get closer, and more importantly, they knew to treat both the preacher and the mercenary with a lot more respect.

* * *

_Okay, I wasn't ready for _that, Simon realized.

In retrospect, Simon suspected that splitting up from Zoe to chase after River really wasn't a bright idea. Zoe couldn't keep up with him, as heavy with child as she was, and he'd gotten a good lead on her.

Which, of course, had led to getting shot. Again.

Simon looked down at his arm, which felt numb. A round had hit him in the bicep. Small-caliber, clean exit. Didn't hit any major arteries or veins, so no likelihood of bleeding out, and the muscle should repair itself with proper treatment.

He then looked back up at his sister, staring down the sights of a pistol, horror stretching across her features, and distantly wondered where Zoe was.

River shook, the weapon dropping, and she started toward him, her other hand rising. Her mouth opened and closed, and she tried to speak, her eyes fixed on the blood running down Simon's arm.

"So, River," he managed. An awkward silenced fell over them, and she looked up at his face, disbelief waging a war with her shock and horror at what she'd just done. Wincing, Simon reached down to his medical bag and took out a biofoam bandage canister, and started applying it to the admittedly small wound.

She started stammering as he filled both wounds with the sealing foam, which would keep him from bleeding out while healing. He ran the mental numbers, and knew it would take maybe a week of rest before he was back to top shape with the foam's anti-coagulants, antiseptics, and chemical boosters that aided in the healing process. But then again, he already knew that. He just wanted the words and figures in his mind, held out clearly for River to pick up.

She was stammering, trying to speak, but he cut in before she could say anything.

"It's okay," he said, and managed a smile through the pain that was now creeping down his arm, intermixed with the numbness that was coming from the painkillers mixed into the foam. "Wasn't a bad injury."

She stopped, tears in her eyes, and the pistol fell from her hand. She reached up and touched his face, and a smile started to form. He _felt_ more than heard or saw her sob, and tears ran freely down his sister's cheek before she dragged him into a hug, and he pulled her tight against him.

"I left you," River hissed, shivering. "I ran away. I left all of you when you needed me. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I can't-"

"Shh," Simon shushed her. "It's okay. You're safe now."

"She's still there, and she still wants me to listen," River added, and pushed back off of him. "I have to keep her safe."

"You don't-" Simon began, but she shook her head and stepped back out of her brother's embrace.

"I know I don't," she said, and shuddered again. "But I _have_ to. Part of me wants to, the other part fights it, and I don't know how much is real, and, and and . . . ."

He saw the turmoil in her, heard it in her voice, and repressed a shiver of his own. He had no idea what it had been like to be under that child's control, but the confusion and fear and uncertainty in River's voice when she spoke was agonizing to hear.

"River," he said. "Do you want me to put you to sleep now?" he asked, and she looked up at him. He saw a sudden, fierce desire in her, intermixed with bone weariness. It fought with that need to protect the girl that she was forcing into River's mind. After a few seconds, River shook her head.

"No," she whispered. "Not yet. Not until we've dealt with-"

River locked up, eyes widening in sudden fear, and she looked up and behind him.

The door behind him hissed open again.

He felt a shock run up him. A familiar shock, one he'd felt a moment before, like a powerful fist hammering him in the middle of his back. A direct hit to the stomach, he realized.

Distantly, he heard the echo of another gunshot.

_Why is everyone shooting me today?_

Simon looked up at River, seeing shock on her face, and he stumbled sideways, turning toward his attacker. A man in a dark suit stood in the doorway, a pistol leveled at Simon, held in blue-gloved hands.

He turned his head toward River, and in the silence, he began to speak.

"_Eta karum . . . ."_

_

* * *

_Zoe tried to keep up with Simon, but upon seeing River, he'd broken into a dead run. She chased after him, but as burdened as she was, she couldn't keep up with the doctor. She yelled out for him to stop and come back; after all, there was a reason they called in a _dead_ run.

He was out of sight in a few seconds, and she cursed as she tried to follow him. She stopped almost immediately, weapon raised, and resumed her careful advance. She kept silent, but mentally cursed the doctor for being so impulsive; most of the time he was good about being rational, but when Kaylee or especially River were concerned, rationality was replaced by the need to keep them safe, no matter what.

She continued down the passage, turning and checking each doorway, moving as quickly as she could while being as prudent as possible. No need to walk past a door and risk a Hand of Blue punching her head off because she didn't give it a check.

She frowned, listening intently, and as the minutes passed, Zoe began to become worried. She should have found some sign of Simon's passage. It was as if . . . .

Zoe stopped in front of a door marked as the life support processing chamber. From what she remembered from the schematics, it was on the opposite side of the engineering deck from where she was supposed to be.

She has gone in the completely wrong direction. Or more likely, she had been led in the wrong direction.

A chill settled in her gut, and she stepped forward, weapon shouldered and ready.

The room was cooler than the rest of engineering. Drier, too. She stepped into the chamber, sweeping her weapon across the machines, checking the corners and dark spaces left by the emergency lights. Tarps hung down over several of the machines, deepening the shadows here and there. Sweat ran down her back and face, and Zoe stopped, listening.

She heard breathing, over the klaxons. Sharp, light breathing, to her left.

Zoe spun, and found herself staring down her sights at Kathryn Wade, not a couple of meters away. She was still small, still pale and dark-haired and frightened-looking, the pistol in her hands far too big and out of place in her grip.

She expected to feel a tide of emotions at the sight of the child who had twisted the entire crew to her will, but instead, Zoe only felt . . . Relief. A sickening, pervasive relief that she had found Kathryn again.

"Katie," Zoe murmured, and found herself stepping toward the girl.

"Zoe," Katie said, and a smile replaced the fear on her face. "I missed you."

* * *

Kaylee opened her eyes to the sound of Wash's gasps. Pain rolled down her back where she'd slammed into one of the metal crates. The mechanic sat up, and heard the distinct impact of one of Inara's bolts burying into human flesh.

The mechanic felt a surge of awareness run through her as she remembered what had happened. She sat up, and saw the Hand of Blue as Wash struck his arm.

Kaylee spun, reaching around blindly for her submachinegun. Her eyes roamed around the area she'd been knocked into, hunting between the crates, but she couldn't find the weapon anywhere.

"Oh, crap, crap, crap," she muttered, fear and anxiety beating on her as she tried to find her weapon. Without it, she was worse than useless in a fight.

She couldn't find it.

Kaylee looked up over the crates, and heard Wash shouting something. Then she saw something she could use. It would be difficult, possibly impossible (and she knew the oxymoron as she thought of it) but if she could get to it . . . Well, he father had taught her well when working on the docks back home.

The Hand of Blue charged across the room toward Inara, and Kaylee made her decision. She pushed the fear back and rose to her hands and knees. She had to make sure he didn't see her before she got to the weapon she'd spotted.

The mechanic began to skitter across the deck, keeping low and out of sight. She could hear Inara fighting, and Kaylee risked another glimpse, to see Inara matching the Hand and forcing him back with her sword. The image brought a surge of hope to Kaylee, and kept moving, even as Wash was trying to smash the cylinder that Jayne and Simon had warned them of. She had crawled halfway toward her destination, and risked another glimpse, just in time to see the Hand crush the momentary surge of hope with a giant packing crate and send Inara flying away.

She heard Wash shout in shock and outrage, a yell she didn't expect from him, and knew she was out of time. She scrambled hand over hand across the deck.

She reached her opportunity, and had to clear one of the bodies out of the way to reach it. She took a breath and began to climb up, moving out into the open where all it would take was a quick glance to spot her. As she did so, there was a horrible clatter of violent noise, what sounded like tools flying everywhere. She ignored it, trying to control her breathing, and sat down. Her fingers played over the controls, and her fear began to fade.

* * *

Wash realized he was in deep when the Hand raised the cylinder and turned toward him. Thinking with the lightning speed of an experienced pilot, he used the only other weapon available to him.

The rest of the toolkit went hurtling end over end at the Hand, and hit him dead center in the chest. Tools went flying everywhere, sending up a horrible clatter of violent noise, and the Hand stumbled back with the force of the impact. He straightened, and Wash could still hear the clatter of falling tools, some of which seemed oddly deep. He spun, looking for another weapon, and saw Inara struggling to her feet, her bow in hand again.

There was a sudden hissing sound, followed by several deep, heavy clicks. Wash, still hunting for another weapon, slowed, confused by that sound. A moment later, he heard the whine of a running power generator as it started up. He found a long metal bar, about the length of his entire arm, and snatched it up, grunting a bit with the effort. He whirled toward the Hand, preparing for a do-or-die death charge.

A heartbeat later, there was shuddering _ka-chunk_: the unmistakable sound of a heavy hydraulic piston pumping followed by a metallic limb hitting the deck. Everyone spun toward the sound.

The two-and-a-half meter tall, solid steel and armor-glass power loader whirled toward the Hand of Blue. The assassin stared at it for a moment, not precisely comprehending what was going on, and Wash was right there with him - up until the loader lurched forward and charged across the room, knocking aside crates in its way like they were balloons.

Behind the armor glass canopy, Wash saw the most disconcerting sight ever: Kaylee, yelling something inaudible, anger contorting her otherwise sunny features.

The loader moved fast, faster than its gait and size would leave one to expect. The Hand of Blue took a couple of steps back, mouth opening and eyes widening in sheer terror, and he leapt sideways with all the speed and agility his armor gave him.

Kaylee beat him. Literally.

The loader's arm swept out and slammed into the Hand as he jumped out of the way, and the impact was like smacking a songbird with a baseball bat. The Hand's body was launched up into the air and slammed into the ceiling, impacting with a wet crunch, and flopped to the floor, boneless and limp.

Wash stared at the Kaylee-commanded loader, looked to the corpse, and back to the loader. He glanced to Inara, who was standing there, staring in open-mouthed shock, which Wash imagined he was close to mirroring.

The loader's front canopy hissed open and slid up, and inside he could see Kaylee sitting inside, shaking with adrenaline and a triumphant, goofy grin on her face.

"Uh," Wash said, and looked to his suddenly inadequate metal bar. He casually set it down on the nearest crate, making a dull _ting_ as it did so. "Um. Good job, Kaylee."

* * *

_Well, shit_, Mr. Quinn thought, as he realized he'd just shot Simon Tam. That wasn't what he'd intended; he'd heard voices, and from behind he hadn't recognized the doctor. Assuming he'd been a member of Serenity's crew, he'd just shot the man outright.

Still, it wasn't a wound that couldn't be treated, and he'd deal with the doctor as soon as he'd put River Tam down. Once that was done, they'd bring him back, and he could explain at length what had happened to his sister in the year she'd been outside of observation. It would be enlightening.

He kept his weapon trained on One-Three-Seven and spoke her code phrase.

Or at least, that was the intention. Mr. Quinn only got halfway through his phrase before Doctor Tam shouted something that made no sense to him at all.

"Independents had dinosaurs!"

He blinked, then looked to Doctor Tam, annoyed that he had broken the code's chain of sounds _again_, and then felt an intensely brutal impact in his chest.

He looked down, and saw a classic Chinese _jian _embedded halfway to the hilt in his upper right torso. Distantly, he remembered the scabbard strapped to the girl's flank.

Then River Tam blurred across the five meters separating them, and he heard her scream, a mixture of horror, fear, and pure, unrelenting fury, right before she grabbed the sword and tore it free in a burst of white-hot pain.

* * *

Zoe stopped just outside of arm's length of the girl. Every ounce of her willpower turned to bottling up any feelings she was having and pushing them back, leaving her cold.

It didn't change the fact that seeing the little girl safe and sound sent waves of relief rolling through her. She fought the urge to scoop up Kathryn and hold her tight. It was a maternal drive, and that was what Katie wanted.

Kathryn stepped forward, lowering the pistol she was holding.

"I was scared," she murmured.

"Is that why you sent River out?" Zoe asked, and Katie paused. Concern for the little girl was growing, along with worry and protective impulses that demanded she shield the child with her body. Zoe blinked, and found she had moved several steps closer to Katie without realizing it.

And she was thinking of Kathryn as Katie, too.

It was hard to process actual thoughts. Cloudy, especially with Katie right there, in need. She was vulnerable, and she needed to be safe. And she looked hungry. Maybe dehydrated, like she'd been sweating too much. If she could get back to Serenity, they could-

Zoe tightened her fingers around her rifle, if only for a moment. She was inside her head. Katie - _Kathryn_ - was twisting her up again, but being aware of it wasn't changing anything. She gathered up all of those feelings and tried pushing them aside, but as she did so, she found herself crouching before the little girl.

"Can you put the gun down?" Katie asked, and before Zoe could respond, the rifle was on the floor.

No. She couldn't let this happen. She had to stay in control. That meant-

"Where is River?" Zoe asked, and for an instant, the gentle pressure of concern and worry faltered for a moment.

"She's keeping us safe," Katie - Kathryn, _gorram_ it - said. "All of us are safe thanks to River."

Zoe closed her eyes, unable to deny the warm pulse of relief those words send out to her extremities. Kathryn stepped closer and reached up toward Zoe's face.

"Can we go somewhere safe now?" the girl asked.

"I don't know," Zoe murmured. "Nowhere is safe for folks like us."

Kathryn nodded, and reached up toward Zoe's face.

"We need to go," she said. The pistol hung heavy in her other hand. "Together. On Serenity."

Zoe opened her eyes, looked into Katie's, then grabbed every bit of feeling and emotion she had, and pushed them aside, just as she had a hundred times before. It took every ounce of willpower to push it all back and down, wrapping it up in layers of solid, metallic discipline.

"No," Zoe said, the words a monumental effort. Katie frowned, her hand pausing just before touching skin.

"What?" she asked, and a small scowl appeared on her face.

She jerked as a gunshot echoed around the chamber, intense and close and brutally loud. A long moment of silence hung in the air, Kathryn meeting Zoe's gaze.

Zoe lowered her sidearm, and leaned back. Kathryn blinked, and then stumbled backwards. She looked down at her chest, where crimson began running down the front of her clothes. In the red light, it looked black.

"How did . . . ."

"I'm a soldier, Kathryn," Zoe murmured. "I was recon. I cut throats for a living. You couldn't be a person while doing that, and I learned to not be one."

She paused, and a deep sorrow tried to force its way up out of her. She fought it down, locking it back behind layers of self-control.

"If you'd have lived long enough, you might have learned that this was . . ."

She shook her head. Tears wanted to come out, grief flooding through her. She still cared about this child, this destructive, manipulative little girl who either didn't know better or wouldn't try to. She didn't know how much of it had been real, or how much of it was just created by Kathryn herself.

Kathryn backed up another couple of steps, and hit the wall. She stopped, and her legs began to wobble. Fear and confusion warred for control over her face.

"I don't know whether it was that place they kept you in that did this, or if it was just you," Zoe said, and crouched before the little girl as she slumped to the floor. "I wish it didn't have to be this way, Katie."

Kathryn dropped to the floor, and sat. Blood began to pool around her, slowly but steadily. She looked up at Zoe, shivering.

"It was wrong," Kathryn said, and Zoe saw tears forming in her eyes. "It was wrong, wasn't it?"

"Yes," Zoe murmured. "It was."

"I'm sorry," Kathryn said. It came out as a hoarse whisper. "I'm sorry I hurt . . . everyone. Tell . . . ."

Her last words trailed off into silence, and Kathryn Wade went still.

* * *

_Red. __**Red **__like Jayne's._

Pure, _endless_. _Red_ **mixed with the pounding in her heart**, _beating inside her head_.

The programming told her to _kill_. Katie told her to _kill_. The training told her to _kill_. The pages she'd read from Jayne, from Mal, from Zoe, all told her to _kill_.

She agreed.

Laertes came **free **in a rush and spray of blood, and she saw the _terror_ in his eyes as she pulled the _jian_ loose.

Words _escaped_ her lips, words with no structure but _**implicit meaning**_, and angry, _wrathful thumbs_ triggered the electricity that ran down the sword.

Laertes drove into his face, and it _felt good_.

He went down, and River Tam screamed, feeling his hot blood on her face, _instincts howling at her that fight or flight had become _**only fight****.** He thrashed as she ripped the blade free, _the shuddering_ causing **a sickening feeling** in her gut, but the rest of her _ignored_ it.

River tasted _red_, trickling into her mouth, and her arm pumped, driving down. _**Red **_splashed and flowed, **chased** by the stink of burning flesh and _**the echoes**_ of her screams. _It tore_ at her throat, _hurting and biting_ as she kept driving the blade down, over and over **and over** into the _empty_, the Hand of Blue, the _thing_ that had chased her and haunted her dreams and put a bullet into her brother-

_there was still red, in her eyes, but not of the mind. physical. blood, in her eyes_

She wiped, and was unsure how much time had passed.

Hot _**sticky**_ ran down her clothes, her hair, over her face and skin and blade. Blood. Her throat ached from the screaming, her muscles from the exertion and beating she'd taken.

_Emotions tore_ out of her, _shock_ and _pain_ and the need to defend and _protect_ and **hold and comfort** Katie were _wrenched_ out of her, leaving an empty void.

She blinked, through the _blood and pain_, and let out a _shuddering sob_ of relief as she understood.

Kathryn Wade was dead.

**Pain** replaced the _ripped emotions_ as Katie's will faded. A harsh, lancing agony of **grief** swam up through her _and bit into her chest_. It was **false**, she _knew_ it was **false**, but that didn't change the _hurt that the realization_ she'd failed to protect Katie spawned. Following it was **exultation**, _a cold, silvery, liquid flame_ _**coiling around her**_ at the realization that

_free_

She was free.

River inhaled, and exhaled, panting painfully, sweat mixing with the blood of the Hand as he lay there on the deck, still and silent. She couldn't see his face; it was all red and burn marks and seeping blood. She hadn't decapitated him, but she'd done worse.

River looked up, and _tasted_ other **colors** in the air, a mixture of **horror** and _disbelief_ and _fear_, tinged with that unique **scent** of

_her brother_

She looked.

Simon sat on the deck, a canister of biofoam in hand, his stomach wound bandaged. He looked at her, and she could see through his own eyes what she **was**: a _**killer**_, _drenched_ in _blood_, **all violence and hatred and anger.**

He didn't see his sister.

He saw the **weapon** they'd created. The **weapon** they'd been trying to forge for so long. The **weapon** Katie had been trying to use.

"Simon . . . ." she murmured, not wanting him to see **the weapon.**

"R . . . River-" he gasped.

**Horror** swam through her veins, _a sticky brown_ _**sensation**_ that burned like _acid_ and overrode her thought processes. Some of it was _his_, but so much of it was _hers_.

_**Words**_, spoken by a man she'd hurt through her _own weakness_ surged to the surface, audible through the _storm._

"_What are you? The girl, or the weapon?"_

**the weapon**

River backed away, and felt the **red** replaced by _pink_ and _blue_. _Shame_ mixed with _sadness_.

"Don't look at me like that, Simon."

The words were unbidden, but she could see his pages _running and flipping, ink_ _**flowing**_ and writing. The _horror_ and _**fear**_ he was feeling-

_fear of me, fear of the _**weapon**_, fear of his sister for falling down this far_

-was changing to _worry_ and **concern**, but-

"River . . . Please, don't-"

She backed away as he tried to rise.

"Don't look at me, Simon."

"River, I don't-"

His hand reached out toward her as he stood.

Panic, _**yellow**_ and **black**, wrapped itself in a _chokehold_ around her.

"Don't look! Stay back STAY BACK _STAY BACK_!"

The shriek hurt her throat, and her feet _shoved_ her away from Simon. He couldn't touch her. He couldn't touch **the weapon** that was his sister.

She couldn't let him see her like this. As **the weapon**, as the tool, as the _gorram_ doll to be played with by evil men and children.

"River, please-"

She didn't hear the rest. The words _hung_ there, but she was gone, fleeing down the corridor outside, blood flowing off her and into the deck as she ran.

* * *

Zoe Allyne Washburne stared at the little girl's still form, and bent down to close her eyes.

She pulled her fingers away, and felt hot tears running down her face. Her fingers came away wet, and she carefully wiped them.

She steadied herself, letting that cold, solid stoicism return, the same emotionless pragmatism that had seen to the slit throats or head shots of countless men in the war, the same frigid stoicism that had made her put a round into the guts of Tracy.

She laid the girl down, covered her with a tarp from one of the processing units. She then rose, rifle in hand, and strode away.

* * *

There were accessways from engineering to other parts of the station, old corridors used by the criminals to sneak around. She used those to circle up through engineering and back to the promenade, but her gait was _hesitant_. She stumbled with every few steps, sobbing as she tried to run.

Simon was trying to follow_. Couldn't let him_. He _couldn't see_. _See_ and **feel** and touch and _hold_

_Shame_ had always been a parasite, _hanging onto her_, **ticks** of _recrimination_ _**and guilt**_. River had cost him his fortune and fame and their family. But now the parasite _grew fat and happy on her._

A tiny, _rebellious_ bit of her _spoke up then, __saying that it would have been better if he'd forgotten.__**Leaving her there in**__ the cold and the_ darkness. No loss, no pain for him, a happy life doing what he loved, no pain for Serenity's crew. _Everything would be better,_ that _sharp, _poisonous,_ hateful_ voice said. Better for everyone else if she'd been **brave** **enough** to cut herself open instead of _being a stupid girl who_ just wanted to hold on to _false hopes._

In the darkness of those accessways, River listened to that voice, long and hard, while running and stumbling and bumping into the twisty passages. She listened, and tried to deny it.

But that _voice_ and _shame_ were friends, and she couldn't evict part of her own mind.

River found the passage leading out into the market, and stepped out into the middle of a gunfight. _The shock_ of noise of gunfire - four guns, four hates, two professional, one at the self, one in red - all _**danced**_ around. The **books** ran with _dark_ _**ink**_, and she could _read_ two of them. Book and Jayne, _reciting the Art of War as_ they traded shots with fuzzy **books - Blue Hand commandos**. Their minds were _indistinct, unclear - implant-protected._

Good. She didn't want to look at their _pages_.

It was quick. They were focused on shooting at Jayne and Book. Her arms were _liquid_, Laertes was _shining_ and _sparking_, and both **men died in a heartbeat,** the **programming** guiding her blade through their armor and into their vitals. They screamed as they died, their minds like _bursts of static_, all chaos and noise but _mercifully incoherent._

River stood over the bodies, and could _taste_ and _hear_ _**disbelief**_, _coiling_ around the two men she'd saved. She looked down the passage, and saw Book, then Jayne rose, _all muscles and beard and sweat and_

_warm_

So, that confirmed her hypothesis that Induced feeling remained after the death of the Inducer in question, the analytical part of her observed. The rest of her wished that it had been under better circumstances.

"Girl?" Jayne yelled.

"River?" Book asked.

They could see the blood. They didn't know what she'd done, but they saw the blood caking her clothes and hair and Laertes.

They saw **the weapon**.

The _shame_ **tick** grew fatter, and the _**poison voice**_ grew louder. Their gazes upon her were **acid**, just like Simon's, and she reeled from them before they could see more of her at her lowest. She turned and fled before they could call out to her again.

She wouldn't let her family see her like this.

* * *

Wash was helping Kaylee get down out of the power loader. The post-combat euphoria was starting to wear down, but Kaylee was still grinning like an idiot, and that expression made him laugh. The absurdity of the situation made it all worse. He was up to his knees in mutilated corpses, had barely survived a battle with a government assassin in power armor, and he was helping the cute, cheery mechanic get out of a giant suit of powered armor that had crushed the Hand of Blue like a beer can.

"What were you yelling at him?" Inara asked as Kaylee clambered down.

"Oh, you couldn't hear?" the mechanic asked. Inara shook her head.

"I was telling him to 'get away from them, you _hun dan_,'" she said. "I thought ya'll could hear me." Wash was about to tell her that the armorglass muffled her voice, when Kaylee paused, looking over his shoulder. He turned, following her gaze, and stopped in place. Someone was standing in the doorway leading in from the promenade.

It took Wash a moment to realize it was River.

She was covered from head to toe in dark, half-dried blood. It stained her clothes, was in her hair, was burned to the surface of the sword she was holding, and marred her face. Her normally-round features seemed more gaunt and haggard. Bruises and small scrapes pockmarked her, and her eyes were wide and wary, reminding him unpleasantly of a frightened animal.

"River?" Kaylee gasped, and the girl started sidling across the dock, effortlessly stepping over debris and bodies without looking but keeping her distance from them.

Wash took a few steps toward her.

"River?" Inara called, and started walking toward her, slow and steady. "River, are you hurt?"

She kept her distance, shaking her head, sword held uncertainly. This wasn't like when she'd killed the Reavers. She'd looked violent and exhausted and dangerous, but not afraid and distant like this. It was almost as if she was . . . .

Afraid _of them_?

River was halfway across the dock, circling around them, and he realized she was heading toward the umbilicals connecting the ships.

"_Xiao teng!"_ he called, and River suddenly stopped. She looked toward him, and then her eyes closed. She slowly shook her head, and he though he saw tears start rolling down her cheeks.

Her mouth moved, and he thought they formed "I'm sorry."

Then she spun and bolted toward the docked ships. Wash immediately dashed after her, but she was faster and closer. She reached one of the umbilicals before him, and ducked inside. He stopped in place and changed course, charging in the opposite direction toward where _Serenity _was docked. If he could get there fast enough . . . .

He charged through the connection, into the altered gravity between the station and the ship. He scrambled up the stairs two or three at a time, cursing the gravity with every step he took. He bolted along the catwalk, feet pounding the grating, and ran up the stairs into the cockpit. Wash practically hurled himself into his chair, fingers playing over the controls.

The displays jumped to life, and he ran the numbers while scanning with every sensor they had. A moment later, they detected the launch of one of the ships docked to the station - a small courier ship less than fifteen meters long. He tried tracking it, but it was moving fast - and as he watched, it swung around to put the mass of the station between his sensors and itself.

River didn't want them to know where she was going. In a few minutes, she'd be able to go cold, flying on momentum, and he'd completely lose her without a massive visual scan. In an hour, she'd be close enough to a major trade route that he couldn't track her, period.

Wash ran the numbers on getting the ship ready for a departure and pursuit. He could detach _Serenity_ and have it after hers in less than a minute, but the courier was faster. It would take him hours to run her down at full burn, and that was if her burn engines weren't better than his thrusters. On top of that, the rest of the crew were still on the station.

The math was simple. They wouldn't get back on board in time for him to detach and track her down. And he couldn't leave them behind to go on a long, likely fruitless chase.

River was gone. Again.

"Dammit," Wash hissed, and felt a sudden, uncharacteristic burst of anger shoot over him. "Dammit! Goddamn it!" He rose, and smacked a nearby data pad off the console in a fit of pique, followed by scattering his dinosaurs and palm trees and anything else small but not easily-destructible.

At the end of the mini-rampage, Wash fell back into his chair, hissing and breathing and sobbing all at once. The only other time he'd felt this angry and helpless was when he'd been fighting with Mal while Zoe had been injured. Maybe it was just that he was coming down off the adrenaline, coupled with shock and frustration and anger. He was scared and worried and frustrated and aching and enraged to the point where he just wanted to scream.

The sensors beeped. He glanced up at them, and saw the distinct flare of an engine burn. She was burning away as fast as she could. River didn't want them to catch her.

He heard footsteps behind him after a few moments, and looked back down the crew corridor.

Jayne and Kaylee and Inara and Book were all hurrying up the passage toward him. Jayne was in the lead, and he looked like he was about to ask questions, angry style, but they were cut off when he saw the expression on Wash's face.

The pilot closed his eyes and settled his head back on the headrest of his chair. The emotions still roiled inside of him as he came down off the adrenaline, but they were overridden by weariness.

"_Wash_," came the intercom. It was Zoe, and he knew her tone. She sounded like she was getting ready to slit throats - or maybe already had. _"Everyone's on board. Get us after her."_

He snatched up the intercom, and managed to flub out something along the lines of "Yeah." He wasn't sure how it came out, and he didn't care. His hands played over the controls, and the pilot detached _Serenity _and started the Firefly on its futile chase after their wayward child.

Half an hour passed, and it confirmed his suspicions. River's little courier had disappeared along the trade route, and while he was hunting for her, she was nowhere to be found. The girl wanted to stay hidden, and she'd done a damned good job of it.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, and he looked back, to see his wife standing behind him. There were bloodstains on her shirt. He didn't need to ask where she got them from. She'd been down in the infirmary helping Simon patch himself up, and there was a look in her eyes that told him everything else he needed to know. Plus, she wouldn't have told him to lift off and chase if she hadn't dealt with the crazy little girl.

"What happened down there?" he finally asked.

"Katie's at peace now," Zoe said. He could tell she wasn't telling him the whole truth, but he left it at that. This wasn't going to be the kind of thing that was going to be easy to get over.

"I can't find River," he said, changing the subject. "I've been looking for her for hours. She's long gone."

"We'll find her," Zoe said, her words quiet and determined. "Or she'll find us."

"I don't think she wants to come back," Wash said. "Not yet. Not after whatever happened to her in there."

Zoe stared out the front viewport and nodded. After a moment, she stepped around the chair and settled down into his lap. He reached down and ran a hand over her stomach, and kissed his wife's neck. He wrapped his arms around her, and held her tight.

"She'll be okay. What about you?" he asked.

"I'll live," she said, her voice quiet, cold, and without inflection.

"More to life than just living," he said, and she nodded.

"Not now," she murmured. She looked back at him. "We've got work to do."

* * *

**Author's Notes**: this chapter took a long time to write, and it got away from me like a jetpack-toting Assassin.

One of the things I've always felt was important regarding the characterization of Zoe is that cold, controlled demeanor. She's always been like iron, the kind of person who can bury her emotions immediately when the need arises and do what needs to be done. At the same time, she can be very tender and loving. I fedlt this duality, coupled with her maternal tendencies (especially as a pregnant mother) made her an excellent character to explore in both this story and the previous one. And her ability to control her emotions and wall them off behind a wall of iron discipline that lets her do what needs to be done is what makes her uniquely suited to dealing with the issue presented by Kathryn. Of course, that doesn't mean she's going to be alright with the decision or its consequences. One doesn't kill a nine-year-old child, no matter how dangerous or psychopathic, without it affecting them.

And of course, there's River. i've always felt that River is a girl haunted by more than just her trauma, but by the effects that trauma has had on the people around her - especially her brother. There's a subtle but strong undercurrent of guilt in her character, and I've always felt that needed to be explored, particularly when coupled with shame and self-hate. River's hate-hate relationship with her programming and training has, I've felt, been underexplored, along with that sense of guilt and shame. She blames herself for what Simon's gone through, and I wanted to explore that, both in this arc and in the next. River has managed to resolve herself into growing up and past her trauma, but now she has to deal with her guilt and shame and self-loathing - something even harder for her to face and overcome.

Until next chapter . . . .


	64. Hunt: Epilogue: Letters

_**Hunt: Epilogue: Letters**_

"So now what're we to do?"

Something about Kaylee's question stung at Zoe. She leaned over the chair in the common room outside the infirmary, where Simon was still laid up, four hours after the surgery to remove his bullets and six after they'd left Sirocco. The Doctor had cleaned and treated the bullet wounds, with Zoe's help, and at least this time he wasn't dying of internal blood loss. He'd then dutifully treated the other scrapes and abrasions and bruises they'd picked up while still horizontal. He was asleep now, thanks to the painkillers and exhaustion, and the six remaining crew were gathered around their acting-captain.

They all looked to her, and it left her uncomfortable, after the rousing failure on Sirocco. Jayne was slouching furiously, one of his knives in hand and twirling it with absent anger. The rest of the crew's expressions were grave through the batterings they'd taken.

"We keep doing what we were," she finally said, pushing off the back of the chair. "We find her."

"If we can," Wash said, his words faintly sullen.

"You think she's gone?" Book asked, and Wash nodded.

"Without her thermal trail," he said, and shrugged helplessly.

"Girl don't want to be found, though," Jayne muttered, and Zoe nodded.

"We can't just leave her," Inara countered.

"Hell, I know that," Jayne grunted, crossing his arms. "Just pointin' out what it means if we're tryin' to piss in the wind."

"Jayne's right," Wash said, "as scary a concept as that is. She's smart enough and spent enough time with us criminal types to know how to lay low."

"The issue isn't with her skills," Book said, "The issue is with her mental stability."

Zoe listened as they spoke, and thought for a long, hard while before speaking up again.

"River's got her own problems," she said. "We'll keep looking for her, but we all know she's likely to not be found unless she's ready for it. The longer she's on the loose, the more likely someone's going to catch up to her." She shook her head.

"But we've got other problems."

"Yeah, like a thousand dead bodies," Jayne grunted.

"Alliance will be all over this," Book said, nodding. "Are you suggesting we should stay out of sight, Zoe?"

She met Book's eyes, and heard the quiet but deliberate challenge in his words. She understood what he meant and what he was really asking.

"It's not a suggestion," she replied, and Book nodded.

"We'll send out feelers," she continued. "Anyone we still have contact with who's still alive. Keep our eyes on the Cortex. But in the meantime, we have two objectives: find someplace safe to hide until this blows over, and get Mal some serious medical help. Can't save River if the Alliance is hunting us."

"Know a place nearby," Jayne said. "A moon with a few old Independent bases. Mercs use 'em time to time. Smuggling and the like."

"We'll take a look," Zoe agreed. "But we need a well-equipped hospital, too."

"Not Alliance controlled, either," Book added, and she nodded again.

"That's a steep order, out this far," Wash said.

"Then we'd best get to it," Zoe ordered.

* * *

_She opened it up, her blade slashing **down inside **of its stomach and up through its heart in a single fluid motion **that brought fluids out**. It shuddered, and_

it _**clawed at her**_, rage and hate and lust and frenzy and screaming _biting into her __**brain**_**, **slashing and biting and **worrying** into

_She wanted to scream._

_the programming wouldn't let her. it flowed to the next one, and she ran with it, her arms moving at its dictates, **legs dancing** at a **dictator's tune**. she moved and slid _**and struck **_into the next_

_The programming **didn't make **her do it. It simply showed her how._

we're not teaching people what to think, we're just trying to show them how

_There was a **different taste to **the rape and hate **and frenzy **in this _one as she stabbed _it through the throat and twisted and it choked and thrashed and died gasping. The **unthinking violence **was still there, clawing its way around a _different_ mind, what might have been a sane person a decade ago, but long since given to _madness_._

_She wanted to cry and curl up and end it all._

_The programming told her how not to, and she followed its lead._

_River Tam flowed through them, **giving in to the **_**training **and memetic **kill-programs**_, letting it take over and use her body to massacre the monsters, their blood flowing and her breath **burning** and her skin _screaming_ and their _thoughts ripping into

River jolted up and screamed.

That went on for a _few seconds_, and ended with _sweating and panting_. **Cold** followed, _and empty loneliness _coiled around her, a _**scaly serpent **_on her neck. Tears drifted down her cheeks, and her nose was stuffy and sniffly.

The cockpit of the ship clasped around her, a cage against vacuum**, alloyed **with _ugly, biting little thoughts _that ran through her skin and chest. It was a small ship, empty _of the happy and life _that was part of _Serenity_. It was quiet and small and empty: just a cockpit, and engine room, a small cargo and storage area, and a living compartment nestled in between the above.

It didn't feel like home.

She ate. Cold, processed protein in the living compartment's kitchen _argued_ with her, but she convinced it _**and her stomach **_to agree. She shambled back into the cockpit, settling down in the chair and the consoles burning to life around her. Her eyes ran over the data, _sorting and processing_ it, and arms heavy like lead sluggishly started plotting her course.

Her fingers hovered over the keys, and she wasn't sure where to send her stolen ship. It had decent range, good fuel, range and there were a few worlds in easy reach that were outside Alliance control. But she didn't know where to go.

_Dice rolled _in her head, and she picked a moon at random. Planning _was irrelevant in her life anyway_; Mal had taught her that nothing was ever smooth.

River winced, and _phantom pain _**flared** along her arm. Her last memories of Mal hung in her mind, and that old weight of guilt dragged at her.

She'd abandoned them. Justifications could be presented, but none of them would hold up. She'd left them, and they were afraid for her.

Her fingers danced over the console, and brought up the ship's messenger program. River knew that she couldn't go back - not yet - but she had to alleviate the pain, somehow.

River tried to put words to digital media. Translation was _poor_. **Cold**. Electronic data being altered had no meaning, not like pen brushes or paint streaks. She couldn't articulate herself into a mechanical storage media.

The first attempt ended in gibberish. This _repeated itself _seventeen times before she finished the first paragraph. An hour and six minutes and twelve seconds had passed, and she stumbled away from the terminal to vomit into the ship's tiny toilet.

The second paragraph was easier. It took her fifty-seven minutes and three seconds.

Seven hours, two pauses to use the bathroom, one meal of _tasteless_ protein, and three near-collapses when she thought of _how he'd respond _**later**, it was done.

She was surprised she never cried while writing it. It made her sick to hurt him like this and hurt her to imagine how he'd feel, but she kept the tears in check.

Her fingers hovered over the "Send" key, and _theories of response and action and words _surged through her. She didn't know how he'd react, or how her family would respond to this. But she required communication. _They _required communication. It was the only way to salve emotional _pain_ and the suffering **hurting** _cutting_ _**wounding**_ shuddering sobs of _grief and __fear _and shame guilt **loath****ingp**ainbitin_gintoher_

The tears she'd been holding back while writing her message _clawed and burned _their way free.

Time _danced_ past, partnered with the stars and distant planets hanging in the Black. _The passage and steps were fuzzy_ and she couldn't count them before she climbed out of the pain fugue and opened bleary eyes. Her fingers rose of their own accord and hit the key, and the message leapt away into the Cortex sea of data currents.

She stared out into the Black for a while, the stars shifting faintly as her craft wandered aimlessly through the darkness, and tried not to think. _Thinking was too painful._

Eventually, weariness overcame her, and the chair _embraced_ River, drawing her into the darkness as well.

* * *

Book watched Jayne as the mercenary pumped iron, a determined tempo to his movements. By now he was getting to be an old hand spotting for him, and knew his little tics while working the bar. In this case, he saw the angry frustration in the mercenary as his arms worked, raising and lowering the steel with a set, furious determination. He was working out the emotions, and while Book could see the obvious ones, a suspicion entered his mind that there was more going on.

Especially in light of River's expression when she'd looked at himself and Jayne. He'd seen something there that he'd caught glimpses of in her, whenever she looked at her brother, but never so openly.

Shame.

What did that mean? He knew that River was traumatized, but what was there for her to be ashamed about?

He frowned, thinking of any clues he might have picked up from her, and remembered her breakdown months ago on the bridge, and his words with Wash over it. If he remembered correctly, Wash had told him she had been distraught because she "gave up" when facing the Reavers.

"I think I understand," he murmured.

"'Bout what?" Jayne growled as he continued the set.

"Why River was so upset when she saw us," he said.

"Uh," Jayne managed, eloquent as he was. For his part, the mercenary was thinking of what had happened on the train between himself and the girl, and a worried part of him began to wonder if the preacher had figured something out.

"She looked kinda . . . " he started.

"Ashamed," Book said, and he blinked.

"Uh, yeah," he said, pretending to agree. For his part, Jayne thought she had looked embarrassed to see him again.

"We saw her at her worst," Book said, and Jayne raised the weights up as he finished. Book absently helped guide them onto the rack. "When we saw her like she was, covered in the blood of men she'd slaughtered, we saw her as the weapon they were trying to make her into."

"You sure that's it?" Jayne asked, sitting up and fetching a towel.

"What do you mean?"

"That damn kid got into her head, into all of ours," he suggested, a thoughtful scowl on his face. "Maybe she's just scared of what the kid did to her brain. Worried it would, uh, keep on affecting her."

"Possibly," Book conceded, nodding. "It bears consideration."

"Yeah," Jayne said, rising to his feet. "While you're consideratin', she's out there with a shock sword and a ship and a jellied brain. Bad enough on its own, not adding in she's the most wanted girl in the 'Verse."

Book looked down at the mercenary as he toweled himself off, and expected to be surprised at those concerned words. Instead, he felt less surprise and more respect. He knew Jayne had come to care for River in a way no one on the ship had expected, and hearing him speak like this, and seeing the angry emotions in him after she had fled and was still out there, confirmed his belief that they meant a lot more to each other than they'd openly admit.

"Are you finished for today?" Book asked after a few moments, and Jayne nodded.

"Want me to spot you a few?" he asked. The old preacher shook his head.

"No, thank you," he replied. "I think I need some rest, myself."

"Fair 'nuff," Jayne said, and Book took his leave, walking out of the cargo bay and leaving the mercenary to his thoughts.

* * *

Ashley Frye stepped out into the docking bay of Sirrocco Station, and caught a full whiff of death.

There was a peculiar smell associated with large-scale, violent death: a scent of old sweat mixed with feces and blood, interspersed with cordite if gunpowder was involved, along with the pungent scent of burned flesh when incendiaries or lasers were used. Depending on where one was, it had it's own particular flavor; blood mixed with mud smelled slightly different, and the stench of corpse-feces mixed into the sweet, tangy scent of wildberries was a distinct memory in her mind, when she'd fought in an agricultural zone seven years ago.

Sirocco smelled of death, none of it easy or quick. It was the smell of tight corridor combat on refugee ships, the cloying of numberless bodies in confined spaces where the civilians had nowhere to flee when the shooting started. Metallic scents, of rust and engine oil and electrical wiring and the dry, musty tinge of recycled air was now decorated with blood and corpse-stench.

Ahead of her, the man who went by the moniker "Echo" strode across the docking bay. There were soldiers moving around - Alliance troops in full kit, along with medical and technical staff and some engineers. The bodies in the hangar had been mostly moved to one side and covered with tarps or loaded into bags, but the bloodstains were still everywhere. They'd apparently been collecting corpses and bringing them here, and now they were out of body bags, instead relying on tarps.

Echo was clad in a dark blue suit of utterly unremarkable cut. He'd washed out the dye in his hair from when they'd first met, returning it to it's natural color, what was apparently a pale, almost-white blond. Ashley followed him across the deck, clad in a canvas jacket and dark shirt, trousers, and boots: all loaners from the man's ship. She didn't have much in the way of personal possessions now; the only thing she wore that was hers was the pistol on her belt.

"What are we after here?" she asked him, wariness making her ill at ease.

"I picked up a message from two of my colleagues," he said over his shoulder as they walked toward an officer who was talking to a medical worker. "It had a lead."

"Silverhold was a bust, so we need something," she remarked, and he nodded. Whatever trail Reynolds' crew had left on that moon had dried up, though there were rumors their ship was sighted out in Kalidesa, which is why they were out here. A sudden detour earlier that day had brought their ship all the way out here, to the edges of the system, and this dingy and now putrid space station on the fringes of occupied space.

An Alliance destroyer had beaten them to the punch, arriving about seven hours after the initial distress beacon had apparently been picked up. A hospital ship had arrived at the same time Ashley and Echo had docked, but she suspected that the doctors and med-techs were just going to be doing coroner's work.

Echo strode up to the officer, who looked up, scowling at the intrusion of what were apparently civilians into military-police work. Or at least, he was until Echo handed him what looked like an ID card. The officer scanned it, stiffened, and nodded politely in the way that was normally reserved for people whose pay grades were multiple orders of magnitude higher.

"Sir," the officer said. "We've found the people you were asking about. Or at least, what's left of them."

"Where?" Echo asked. The officer pointed to the line of bodies across the room, and led them there. Ashley gingerly stepped around the bloodstains on the floor, and tried counting the number of tarp-covered corpses. She lost count.

The officer paused next to three bodies set aside from the others. Echo exhaled when he saw them, and seemed to relax slightly, as if relieved by seeing them.

"Just the three?" he asked, and the officer nodded.

"Only three," he confirmed. "The fourth person, the adult girl, was nowhere to be found."

Echo nodded and bent over removing the first tarp. Ashley winced; the corpse underneath had been wearing a business suit before it had apparently been shot repeatedly and then slammed against a wall, probably by an explosion. She noticed the man had been wearing some kind of blue bodysuit underneath his clothes, visible in the rents in his outfit. The second adult-sized body was wearing a similar suit, but its face had been pulped and burned into an unrecognizable mush. She couldn't tell what had done that, but whatever it was she didn't want to meet it.

Echo pulled the third tap back, draped over a much smaller form.

Ashley though her stomach was done churning, but the little girl's corpse disproved that assumption, and she took a step back, muttering a curse under her breath. Echo kept pulling the tarp back, showing the blood that had soaked into the girl's clothes and stuck to the plastic. She'd been shot in the chest - looked like close range, with a pistol.

Echo looked over her, curious frown on his face, but he sagged a bit more with obvious relief.

"Well," he said as he crouched over the body. "That solves that."

"Are you up to your quota on cryptic comments yet?" she asked through the nausea. Her brows furrowed. "The kid isn't normal, is she?"

"No," Echo replied.

"Who is she?"

"Dangerous," he said.

"Odd name for a kid," she muttered. "Must be the fashion these days. You going to explain what's going on here or leave me in the dark again as to why we're wading around in corpses and blood?"

"The specifics aren't relevant," Echo added, rising. "Not to what we're doing."

"Stuff like that makes me reconsider your help," she said, and he glanced up at her.

"You understand operational security," the white-haired man said. "There are plenty of things above your pay grade, Corporal. This is one of them."

"I've seen a lot of weirdness working with you, and no signs of my sister," Ashley said, crossing her arms. Anger started bubbling up in her at his refusal to be honest with her. "Where do-"

There was a chirping sound, and Echo glanced down at his communicator. He picked it up, turning away from her and speaking into it, and that just pissed her off even more. She almost reached up and smacked it out of his hand, but she didn't have money or a ship to get back home, and knew how fast the man could move. Pissing him off was a bad idea He spoke a few quiet words, then looked up at her and muttered an affirmative before closing the device.

She opened her mouth to speak, but he held up his hand, smiling.

"We've found them," he said, and she blinked.

"_Serenity_?" she asked, and he nodded.

"Station computers got an infrared record of a Firefly-class freighter docking shortly after the distress call was sent," he said, and his smile grew. Excitement tinged his voice. "She - they, I mean, were here. Two days ago." His smile faltered for a moment, and he shook his head. "And I apologize."

The shift in gears left her momentarily speechless, and before she could respond he stepped past her, moving back toward the docking collar for their ship.

"We have to hurry," he said as she chased after him. "We've almost found them."

"And what happens when we do?" she demanded as she followed him.

"Circumstances will dictate that," Echo replied. "I'll figure that out when I get there and know what's going on."

"Oh, good. For a moment I was worried you had some idea what you were doing," she said as they moved out into the corridors beyond.

"Plans are for people who are competent," he replied. "I'm not. I just have a remarkable proficiency at adaptation." He glanced back at her. "What we do will depend on where they are, what they're doing, and what connection they have to the people we're looking for."

"Who _are_ you looking for?" she asked. He didn't immediately reply, and she responded by reaching up and snatching at his shoulder, stopping him in place and spinning him around. He blinked at her in shock, and she glared at him. She did her best to hide the sudden apprehension she felt as he stared down at her, with the memory of how casually the man had dropped that bounty hunter hanging acutely in her mind.

"If I'm going with you, I deserve some honesty," she demanded. "You haven't told me exactly what you want with these people, and I'm not going any further with you on this until you do."

He stared back at her for a moment, surprise shifting to careful neutrality. Beads of sweat ran down Ashley's back, because she knew how weak her position was here. He didn't really need her, with the resources and access he seemed to have, and confronting him like this was not a terribly brilliant idea. That didn't change how suspicious he was and the lurking impression she was being led along.

"You want me to be honest with you?" he asked, and she nodded. "I wasn't telling you because I didn't want you more involved than you needed to be."

"I'm a big girl," she said. He opened his mouth, probably to snark back at her, but paused. He pressed his lips together, and she saw Echo thinking carefully.

"There is a girl on the ship," he said. "Late teens. Her name is River."

"What do you want with her?" she asked, leaning back.

"To bring her home," he said, and he glanced back across the bay, to where the dead child had been. "She's a very disturbed girl, and I worry what might happen to her."

Ashley followed his gaze back to the small form under the tarp. She tried not to think of the dead girl's features.

"Why?" she asked.

"She is very special," Echo said, shaking his head. "Mentally ill, but special. Her brother is a misguided but well-intentioned man, and has fallen in with the wrong sorts. Subversives, former Independents, Dust Devils. He kidnapped her, and I've been sent to find her and bring her home where she can be properly treated."

Ashley nodded, relaxing a bit.

"Why the secrecy?" she asked, and he suddenly laughed. It was a short, amused bark of a sound.

"An Alliance Marine like yourself getting entangled with these things," he said. "They'd hate you. I wanted to insulate you from the worst of it, as these are bad people."

"Yeah, well-" she started, but he held up his hand.

"And I apologize," he added quickly. "It was in error, I guess. And I'm so used to keeping secrets in my line of business that it was almost on reflex."

"You still haven't told me what that business is, anyway," She said, and he nodded.

"Like I said-"

"Above my pay grade, I know," she replied. She frowned, looking down, and nodded. "Fair enough. You told me more than I expected."

"Are you still coming with me?" he asked, and she shrugged.

"You've got the ship and the money and the leads on my sister," she said.

"And still no contact with her," he added, to which she nodded.

"Old Cortex address I used to contact her is no good. No surprise, it's more than half a decade old. And my family won't even talk to me anymore, so I doubt they'll forward a message to her for me."

"I'm not sure whether you're lucky to have a family or unlucky that they don't talk to you anymore," he said, and started toward their ship.

"Me neither," she replied, then shifted the subject. "Can we track them like this? They've got a day's headstart on us."

"Yes," Echo assured her, and a tight grin appeared on his face. "We'll find them. Trust me. Finding lost things is my _specialty_."

* * *

The console beeped, and Wash glanced up at it. _Serenity's_ cockpit was empty, save for her pilot, and the not-silence of the thrumming consoles and electrical wiring was almost deafening. The beeping was a welcome change of pace, and he leaned over the console, fingers tapping the keyboard. The sound indicated that they'd received a high-priority Cortex message, sent straight to their own secured drop box.

He opened the message, looked over it, and froze as he read the first words.

Wash then fumbled for a datapad. Simon needed to see this.

* * *

Simon was sorting out his medical supplies again, taking a careful inventory of what they had and what he expected they would need. It was simple and easy work, but it kept his mind engaged and off the aches in his arm and chest from where the bullets had struck. More importantly, it kept the angry, helpless frustration he was feeling in check.

River was gone. Again. And this time, it was of her own volition.

He understood why, and that made him angrier and more frustrated. At himself, at the people who did this to her, and even a little at her, though he knew he shouldn't.

Furthermore, he was frustrated that they couldn't go after her. He understood why, but that didn't make it any easier.

And now she was out there again, alone, without him to look after her, and he didn't know what River was going to do without her family to take care of her.

"Doc?"

Simon looked up from his spreadsheet, and felt a sharp retort on his tongue at someone interrupting him in the middle of his self-recrimination. He caught it and held it back, and turned toward the entrance to the infirmary, where Wash was standing.

"Yes?" he asked, and saw the worried look on the pilot's face. Wash hesitated, and held up a datapad.

"It's, uh. It's from River," the pilot whispered.

The doctor was silent for a moment, his heart slamming up into his throat. Simon reached up to take it, and found his hands were trembling. He stared at them for a moment; his were surgeon's hands, the kind that didn't shake without physical trauma. He finally took the device, and looked down at the pad's screen.

A single text message was displayed, in simple, bold font.

_Simon,_

_I'm not right. I haven't been, since they took me. I tried to be right, to be functional, and I thought I had begun to heal. You and Mal and Book and Inara and Kaylee and Wash and Zoe and Jayne all assisted me at my worst moments, when I wanted to scream and hurt myself or hurt others. With your help, I thought I was functional, and I promised myself I wouldn't let them use me. I wouldn't let them win._

_But she used me. Kathryn twisted me inside, and made me hers. I fought her and I lost. How can I be functional when it is that easy for someone to rip me up inside and make me their toy?_

_When I shot you, it was out of fear. I let the programming take over, and I shot you without thinking. I let the programming use me. When I killed that Hand of Blue, I let the programming use me again._

_I let it kill a man, and I reveled in the release, the hate I was feeling, the outrage and fear and fury all being poured into someone who terrified me and had hurt you. It was a righteous violence that I unleashed on him, and it felt . . . It felt good. _

_That scares me. _

_It scares me so deeply that it could make me hurt you, and I'm terrified that it will make me hurt someone else if I slip and let my emotions escape me. And it horrifies me that I enjoyed doing something so brutal and animalistic._

_I've already killed people because of the programming. In the Maidenhead, three people died because of this cold and slimy thing in my brain that tells me how to take lives. I still see them, sometimes, when I sleep, and sometimes when I'm awake. I killed them and couldn't control myself, locked behind a prison in my own mind, behind bars made of synapse and behavior. And then the programming made me shoot you._

_I can't come back. Not yet, and not until I am in control of myself and the programming that's buried in my mind._

_I won't be used again. Not by them, and not by the things they branded into my brain. I will not be a weapon, and I will not let the weapon control me. I will put a bullet in my cranium before I let anyone use me again. _

_I am a person, and I will be functional._

_I'm sorry, Simon. And tell everyone else that I'm sorry, too. Please._

_Love,_

_River_

Simon closed his eyes, and fought the heat beating against them. He set the datapad down, and felt pain in his chest that had nothing to do with the bullet wounds.

* * *

Wash watched him, noting the careful, steady movements of his hands, and slowly, quietly moved out of the room. He'd never seen the doctor cry before, and he suspected that Simon didn't want anyone to see him in that state. It was a man thing.

He moved back out of the room as quickly as he could, and once in the hallway outside, he heard footsteps coming from the stairs. Wash looked up, and saw Kaylee descending to the passenger deck. She hesitated as she spotted Wash, and he stepped toward her.

He didn't need to say anything; she could read what was needed in his eyes and expression. He glanced back to the doctor's room, and she nodded. The mechanic brushed past Wash and slid into the infirmary, and he could hear indistinct murmurs. A moment later, the door slid closed.

Wash hesitated out there in the hallway, alone for a few seconds, uncertain what he should be doing. There was an ache in his chest that had been there for weeks, and he felt it growing worse every second.

He was afraid, for their future and the lives of his child and his copilot and his captain and whatever lay in store for all of them. A few weeks ago things had seemed so certain. Now . . . .

Wash shook his head, and started up the stairs toward the crew deck and the bridge. He wasn't going to give in to that uncertain worry and fear. Zoe was going to get the Captain the attention he needed, and find River - and if they needed to smack some sense into the crazy kid to show her that they were going to handle this problem of hers _together_, then they needed to get on it.

Jayne was up and he was on watch in the cockpit. They shared a few gruff words, and then Wash headed to his bunk. The hatch leading to the shared bunk he and Zoe lived in was closed but unlocked, and he gently opened it and climbed down.

Zoe was already in bed. Asleep, she wasn't the Amazon warrior who could square off against the worst scum in the 'Verse without a tremor to show for it. Asleep, she looked peaceful and happy, like a woman who had settled down where she belonged.

Wash slid into bed beside her, sliding an arm around her. She didn't move. A few moments later, he slipped into darkness.

He opened his eyes sometime later to a sound, distant and quiet, but distinctive. He looked up at his wife, still lying next to him.

Her eyes were closed, but her fingers gripped the pillow tightly - so tight he thought she might rip the fabric. She was also shaking, but not in the steady trembling of fear or cold. It was the irregular jerks of sobbing.

Tears ran down Zoe's cheeks.

He reached across and wrapped his arms around his wife more tightly. Her eyes opened slightly, meeting his, and she simply lay there, letting him pull her close to him. Wash put his head to hers, inhaled her scent, and whispered quiet words to her that meant nothing and everything. Her arms clutched at him, pulling him to her.

Wash held Zoe and let her release her pain and grief into him, in her own way, just as she had held him for so long.

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** Well, that chapter took a bit too long to write.

The end of this chapter was originally supposed to be the end of the Charity arc, as that arc was supposed to end with Zoe killing Kathryn. Instead, the storyline got extended, and, well . . . .

Up next, expect another interlude, this time focusing on our intrepid crew as they hide from the Alliance. Might be a bit more light-hearted. There may also be another River-centric interlude up ahead. The next arc will likely be fairly short as well, with River working to overcome her own issues on her own. We'll see how that turns out...

Until next chapter...


	65. Fourth Interlude

_**Author's Note**_: This is a long chapter. Very long. 11,000 words, to be precise, probably one of the longest chapters I've written for this story (probably a short story in and of itself). This is also a River-centric interlude, so expect to see copious amounts of Riverthink.

This chapter is also somewhat more angsty than is usual for me. There are flashbacks here to some quite momentous and painful moments in River's life.

* * *

_**Fourth Interlude: Alone**_

_The ocean was a novel experience. Warm water tickled her toes as she walked down the yellow-white beach, sand sticking to her soles. A blue sky poked in between gray and white clouds overhead, but it was warm and the surf smelled of salt and foam. A greater sum of trill-creds had been spent on terraforming Osiris than many of the other Core worlds, so it benefited from a truly Earth-That-Was beach and ocean that was supposed to be as close to the original as possible._

_She ran the economic expenditures in her head and weighed them against what benefits might have been given to planetary infrastructure as she sloshed through the surf, laughing and chasing after her brother._

"_Simon, wait!" she cried, following him down the beach. His legs were longer than hers, and he was bigger and older, so he pulled out ahead. She was catching up to him in the growth department, being exactly seventeen hours after her twelfth birthday, but he was still so much older and stronger and smarter. He was already a doctor, after all._

"_Hurry up, slowpoke!" Simon yelled to her. His voice still surprisingly high-pitched despite his size. He'd never have a deep voice, she suspected, but from this vantage point on the temporal spectrum, she could see the man he would eventually turn into: lean, dark-haired, handsome. Never tall and probably never heavily-built, but brilliant enough to get any girl he could ever want._

_She wanted to be him. She couldn't hope catch up, but she would be as close to the person he would be as possible._

_She kept chasing him down the beach, when a particularly strong wave came rushing in and hit her across the knees. She gasped as the warm ocean water ran up past her thighs, soaking her up to her waist, and it knocked her legs out from under her. She toppled forward into the foamy water._

_Warmth embraced her, shooting up her nose, and she was blinded for a moment by stinging salt water. It swept out just a moment later, pulling her a dozen centimeters with it._

_She sat up and sneezed the water out of her nose, arms and legs and dress covered in wet sand and soaked completely. She shook her head, throwing water about, and then started laughing._

"_River, come back away from the water!"_

_She looked up at her mother's voice, and saw both their parents further up the beach, sitting out on a towel and umbrella, wearing their conservative "I don't want to have any fun" swimwear. Papa was working on his source box and computer even now, not looking up at her._

_She felt Simon close in before she heard him, and glanced up at her brother as he strode through the surf, unruffled by the strong waves that had knocked her over. Another round of warm salty water slid in around her, embracing her where she sat, and she almost settled back into it, as it felt so inviting._

_Simon then stood over her, grinning, and extended a hand to her. She reached out and took it-_

* * *

Her eyes opened. She emerged from the _memory-dream_, and was hurled out of her chair.

Klaxons suddenly sounded, the console beeping and screaming in her ears, a torrent of noise and shuddering sensations that sent adrenaline pouring into her body and triggered the programming's **cold**, **metallic**instructions.

_under attack_

River Tam jolted up and into the chair, hands flying over the courier vessel's controls. She brought up the sensors, checked the feeds, and assessed damage control. It was a familiar sensation, and bits of _thought and memory from Wash _ran up and down her arms as she clacked away at the keyboard.

Minor hull breach on the aft quarter, consistent with mass accelerator weaponry. Engines at twenty-three percent power. Seventeen thousand kilometers to her rear, a modified freighter with a couple of protruding cannons closing in at a very swift speed.

Pirates.

It had been stupid of her to sleep while traveling, but the proximity detectors had been armed. They hadn't warned her because the threat was outside her sensors' warning range, and was too small for the settings she'd put in. Stupid, stupid, _stupid_.

Options **scrolled **through her mind.

Distress call. No good. System militia or Alliance patrols would take too long, and the latter would be worse than pirates. Death was preferable to the Academy, dammit.

Outrun them. The courier was faster than their ship _(Kowloon-class light freighter, model DX-TPF0112 based on thermal wake)_. Not possible. First shot had taken out her engines. She couldn't match their acceleration.

Fight. Poor odds. Her ship was unarmed, they'd hack into her systems in seconds once they grabbed her, and gas her or pull her oxygen or board and overwhelm her with sheer firepower. She was good but not that good.

Hide. She was within twelve minutes' burn time with her engine damaged as it was to reach the planet Oberon. She could hit the atmosphere and hide on the surface. Odds of success were meager, but superior to the chances of the other plans.

River poured everything she had into the wounded engines and gunned it for the dusty brown sphere of Oberon, looming tantalizingly close. She tightened her sensors to lock on the pirate freighter.

The pirates continued to close, and their mass accelerator fired again. She spotted it this time, a heartbeat before it would hit her, and fired her maneuvering thrusters. The ship skittered sideways, and the courier shuddered as the round sliced along her hull but did not penetrate. She altered her course, swinging her ship around so that she was between the planet and the pirates.

They began to dodge around, trying to get an angle on her ship that didn't have the planet backstopping their shots. Planetary authorities got tetchy when pirates sent ship-grade weapons into their atmosphere, no matter where the shots hit, and did silly things like send interceptors and gunships in response. It was a trick Wash had taught her.

_Pain _ran up through her, and she shook her head, trying to focus instead of thinking on her betrayal. She couldn't survive this if she was stuck on her own _self-recriminations_.

River kept the courier twisting and dodging, keeping herself between the planet and the pirates while struggling to keep the engine from dying on her. The **focus **on those tasks let her stay lucid and clear. Minutes of weaving and dodging ticked past, the pirates still closing but unwilling to fire lest they find angry interceptors boiling out of the atmosphere like _laser-y __**wasps**_.

Atmosphere tugged on her ship, sending up sparks and heat along the hull, and _whispers of elation __**danced **_around her. Echoing _pangs of frustration _**pinged **off the courier's hull as the pirates continued to close.

The sensors squawked, and the courier jolted.

**Iron **materialized in her stomach, making _companions __and having tea with leaden dread._

The grappling claw the pirates had fired tightened and went taut, and cheers of victory, _sick noises _that made her stomach grumble, pinged off the hull.

Options.

A story Wash had told her sprung to mind.

Her fingers danced across the console, ideas _weaving _through her brain like meteor showers and ballet dancers. The courier's engines suddenly reversed, and she shot back toward the pirates. The grappling cable slackened, the operators caught off-guard by the sudden change.

Delicious _confusion_ did a little jig along the hull.

She flipped and twisted the courier, angling the engine toward one of the side-mounted thrusters on the pirate ship, while switching the engine to interplanetary burn-mode. The engine spun up, plasma starting to gleam inside of it. She leveled out then, lining up her engine with the side thruster on the pirate vessel.

_Comprehension_ **sprang up **like weeds, followed by _yellow fear-mites_, skittering along the metal.

River triggered the engine, and it fired off, loosing a ribbon of tight plasma. The courier jolted forward; even on weakened engines like hers, interplanetary burn had an immense amount of force, and the plasma was hot enough to melt non-warship-grade hull plating. Even so, it wouldn't be enough to do more than briefly blind her opponents.

Except the plasma ribbon flowed right into the pirate ship's starboard thruster.

The freighter's engine overheated almost instantly, and automated emergency failsafes (standard across all Kowloon-class freighters, as Wash had told her) kicked in, shutting the engine down. The pirate vessel started spinning sideways, and then the grappling cable ran out, dragged to its length by the rocketing courier shooting down toward the planet.

The claw was weaker than the cable's housing, and snapped clean off.

She was free. River began to level out and search across the planet's surface for a hiding spot. Rocky, desert-brown hills and ridges rose up on the surface below her, covered with low brown-green scrub and some occasional trees, and she hunted through them for a suitable spot.

Behind her, the pirates cut their second engine and fired their maneuvering thrusters, straightening out. They spun around, facing her ship only a few dozen kilometers away as she rocketed across the landscape.

**Anger **rumbled against the metal of her ship and _sank_ into her bones.

The mass accelerator fired again, and its aim was true.

River pitched forward out of her chair, slamming into the console -

_should have put on safety restraints_

- and fell to the deck as he ship began spinning wildly, alarms screaming at her. She fought her way up to her seat, hearing the screaming in her ear, and some distant part of her realized it was also coming from her as she grappled with the controls.

The desert of Oberon was rising up in her cockpit, a spiraling mish-mash of brown, and then a **fist** the _size of the universe _slugged River across her whole body-

* * *

Her eyes opened, and pain was a defining aspect of her new reality. Pain, and the copper of blood in her mouth.

The **programming **told her to sit up, and she did, ignoring the _swimming _and _swirling _and agony rolling over her.

Mental checklist. Large amount of bruising across whole body. Possible concussion. Bleeding from two lacerations in mouth due to self-inflicted dental wounds. Possible cracks in ribcage due to repeatedly slamming into console. She checked with her fingers.

_White. Very, very white._

Revision: ribs definitely cracked.

The pain faded, and she managed to stand, pushing the agony back. She found excellent motivation to do so: laboring engines outside.

Her pistol was close. Fingers wrapped around familiar, deadly metal.

Outside, an exit ramp hit the sand.

She limped to the hatch, picking out _boots _and _**books **_and tying **books **to _boots_. Four men, metal in hand. Shotguns, one submachinegun, grenades. **Eager inks **mixed with _anger _and _greed _scribbled violently across their pages as they loped across the sand.

She reached the hatch and closed her eyes. Her lips moved of their own accord, _rebelling _against the stillness of the rest of her body.

Estimated distance: Fourteen meters. Targets have two meter spread on average between them. No need to correct for wind, Coriolis Effect. One, two, three, four.

She opened the hatch and spun out, weapon rising.

The pistol barked once -

_direct hit to heart, penetrating ventricle, causing massive hydrostatic shock, complete heart failure, death inside of one minute_

- twice -

_hit to throat, penetrating major artery, massive blood loss, unconsciousness within thirty seconds, death within one minute_

- thrice -

_impact center of head, just above upper lip, penetration, bone fragmentation, bullet slicing through brain stem, death instantaneous_

-and four times.

_direct hit to nose, penetrating cartilage with minimal loss in velocity, passing through upper portions of brain stem, inflicting heavy cranial trauma, death within one minute_

She opened her eyes. Four men lay dead or dying not ten meters away.

The ship hovered there for a few moments, and then the thrusters erupted. She ducked back into the hatch as the dust clouds rose up, and ship spun around and shot into the sky as fast as it could go.

Wisdom was scarce among pirates. The survivors had hoarded theirs, clearly.

River turned back, closed the hatch, and took a few steps toward her bunk and the medical kit inside before the floor rose up and gave her a hard, heavy, painful metal **hug**.

River's eyes opened, and the pain was once more gratuitous.

She pushed herself up, hissing at the agony in her ribs, and checked the clock. An hour and seven minutes had passed.

Alive and still inside the battered, crashed old courier. Good enough. She shambled up to her feet, head swimming, and stumbled into the bunk. The medikit slid out of its drawer and clattered from weak fingers to the deck. Muttering curses under her breath, River hefted it up, opened it, and started patching up her wounds and taping her ribs. There were painkillers inside, and she swallowed two of them.

Her head fell back onto the bunk's lumpy, uncomfortable pillow, which smelled of someone else who had owned this ship before she'd stolen it, and darkness claimed her again.

* * *

_White light stabbed into her eyes. She recoiled from the harsh glare, closing her eyes from the painful, lancing lamp._

_Hard fingers grabbed her hair, yanking her head around. Pain erupted along her scalp as her head was wrenched back toward the light, and she gasped. She tried to push away or raise her hands or kick or struggle, but hard leather straps held her down to the cold metal chair, wrapping around her legs and arms and neck. The air was frigid, goosebumps rising off her skin._

"_Open your eyes!" a man snarled at her, his voice harsh but familiar. "Look at me!"_

_She refused._

_Her head snapped back, blood splattering across her cheek. Pain rolled across her face._

"_Look! At! ME!"_

"_No!" River screamed back._

_He hit her again, across her left eye. Then again, in the mouth. She though she felt a tooth give way._

"_We can keep this up all day," the man muttered, and then his fist came down, lower, hitting her in the stomach. She jolted backward in the chair, the air blasted out of her lungs._

_The voice. It was familiar. So _gorram_ familiar._

_She raised her head, and opened her right eye._

"_Good," the man said. "Cooperative."_

"_I know you," River breathed, blood dribbling out of her mouth. The light blazing into her eyes tilted a little, and she stared up at the man's face. Dark skin, wide nose, solid features that were used to smiling. Except his skin was smooth of wrinkles, and his hair was dark._

_And her blood was on his knuckles._

" _. . . Book?" she whispered, horror rolling up through her._

_His response was a blow to her jaw, knocking her head back._

"_Surprised?" he asked. "Not so innocent now, are you? Not so worthy of forgiveness?"_

_He grabbed her hair again, pulling her head around to face him anew, and the light glared down into her eyes._

"_I don't give a damn if you're innocent or not!" he snarled into her face, spittle striking her cheek._

_She stared at the man's eyes, cruel and vicious and lacking in anything familiar._

"_Where does that put you?" he whispered, and a smile empty of mirth spread across his features._

_His fist rose and slugged her again._

* * *

She jolted awake, gasping and choking back a scream. River twisted, eyes skittering across the interior of the bunk. Pain _moaned _over her body, particularly her stomach, hardening into clumps of snarling grumbles where the bruises and lacerations were worst. The bunk itself was still and quiet.

Her breathing was _bucking _and out of control, and she couldn't separate _phantom dream-pain_ from real pain without some effort.

Her fingers scrabbled for the medikit, and it eluded her for a moment, metal _refusing _to be scooped up by her fingertips for the first couple of tries. She finally got it to agree with her and pulled it up, opening the box and digging for more painkillers.

"Run away and die tired."

She jerked and cried out in shock, the medikit leaping out of her hands and spilling supplies all over the bed and floor. Her head snapped up, locking onto the entrance to the bunk, a **shadow falling over her.**

Someone, **huge **and _familiar _and sending _spikes of agony-terror_ _**jabbing **_into her skull and chest, loomed over her, a sneer on his lips.

"Point of pride," the voice said, deep and heavy. "I always catch my target. You think killing me is going to stop that?"

She sat up, ramrod straight. She knew that voice.

"Dead," she breathed, and the man **looming **over her laughed.

"Like I said, that ain't gonna stop me," the dark-skinned figure murmured, clad in a carmine jumpsuit of armor, and he reached down for her. She backed away, her shoulders hitting the wall, and her fingers skittered and searched. One hand closed around Laertes, sheathed beside her, while the other found her pistol. She snapped them up before her, screaming and eyes closing in near-panic.

The pistol **barked**, impossibly loud in the tiny space. The round ricocheted once off the wall and buried in the deck plating.

Silence, save for her labored breathing.

River's eyes forced themselves open, her muscles trembling and body heaving with terrified gasps.

**Nothing**. _No one was there. _The ship was empty. Her _awareness reached_ out and confirmed that she was alone.

"Hallucination," River breathed, shaking her head. She felt heat form behind her eyes as she realized the specter of Jubal Early had been only that.

Tears escaped her eyes, and she didn't fight back the sobs. It was starting up again. Without the medicine, without Simon, without her family, the **madness **was creeping in.

After a few minutes of crying, an errant thought started up in her brain, rebellious and angry. Her fingers tightened around the grip of the pistol and the sheath of Laertes as that bit of Mal she'd picked up **stomped **its way into the front of her mind. That _flicker_ of his **writing **on her mind joined the strength of the others that made up her family, and she pushed the _tears and self-pity and frustration_ back.

If the madness returned, she would deal with it. That was the whole reason she had chosen to journey alone.

Options.

Repair the ship. She stepped back into the engine room glanced at the gaping holes in the engine core from where they'd hit her vessel, and scratched that. This ship would never fly again.

Wait for rescue. The ship's chronometer told her that she'd been out for two hours. Three hours since crashdown. If planetary rescue authorities were coming, they would have arrived already. Maybe local citizens would come, but she couldn't count on speed or goodwill. Estimates were that it was just as likely she would encounter scavengers that wanted to strip the ship for parts and kill or do other unsavory things with her instead of providing medical attention. In addition, the pirates might get their courage back and return with more men.

Call for help. A glance at the ship's transmitter told her it was mangled beyond repair.

Find help. Possible. She limped to the ship's console in the cockpit and pulled up the computer's atlas and almanac data on Oberon. She quickly found her position on the planet and did geographic checks for available shelter.

There was a habitation of maybe fifty-seven kilometers to her east. It was marked as possessing a local marshal, and the almanac had been updated three weeks ago. Reasonably safe. She bit her lip, considering the difficulty of the journey in her injured state. Provisions on the ship were sufficient for up to a week's time. She could make it, provided she didn't collapse from her injuries.

Better than waiting for the pirates or scavengers to come.

She collected the ship's food supply and water, gathering it into a bag and a series of bottles. The medikit went with it. She downloaded the local maps and planetary data into a data needle and put it into a data pad. She stepped outside, to find the warm early-morning desert had been replaced by hot and harsh afternoon desert. She pushed through the sweat and dust and heat, finding the corpses of the men she'd killed. She took one of their shotguns, ammunition, a holster, and all the money they had left. They had grenades too, incendiaries with push-pin functions that acted like dead man's switches. She appropriated those too, putting two onto a pouch slung across her chest. Most of the rest went in the bag, but she holstered her pistol on her side, the weight comfortable, and managed to fashion an over-the-shoulder rig for the shotgun. Finally, Laertes went on her waist.

Focusing on the tasks let River stay lucid. If she lost herself while trying to work, she suspected she wouldn't recover.

She hefted the entire ensemble onto her shoulders and started across the hot, empty desert to the east.

* * *

She'd heard the desert sun described as a "beating" force, but in her experience it was more of a constant, heavy pressure on her, forcing her to struggle simply to keep moving. Not an hour after departing from the crash site, River felt exhaustion creeping around her, a _wearying serpent_. Between the heat, her injuries, and the gear she was carrying, it was all starting to take its toll.

_Prudence _told her it was a bad idea to bring so much with her. The shotgun in particular was questionable in its utility. She pushed on, though, sipping carefully from one of the bottles of water. Sweat ran down her face, and she finally paused, settling down into the dust and pulling out her pack. She fashioned a small strap using a knife and a tatter from her dust-covered clothes, and pulled her hair back. It **hated **being constrained, but she understood that letting it hang around her face would just make things more uncomfortable.

Once she was finished, River's body _protested in angry chorus _as she pushed herself up to her feet and hefted her pack onto her shoulders anew. Her feet began shuffling forward, and the _rest_ of her reluctantly followed.

An hour passed, pooling together into a dull blur of heat and aches and plodding feet pushing over dirt. She kept moving eastward, using the data pad's built-in compass to guide her. The glare and the dust made her constantly squint as she worked her way over the rolling hills.

She slowed as the next hour passed. A ridge rose up ahead of her, and she had to navigate around it. That took another hour, the star overhead gradually shifting into Oberon's "west" as she plodded along. The pain in her back and chest blurred into a low, but bearable ache in the background, and River found herself focusing on the movements of her legs, keeping herself headed forward and around the inconvenient geography.

Oberon, like its literary namesake, was **being inconsiderate**. Of course, it was irrational to consider billions of years of geological transformation to be part of a deliberate campaign to inconvenience a single crazy girl as she plodded across a rocky desert, but it made her feel better to have someone to blame for it all.

She found a gap in the stone along the ridgeline, and worked her way through it, clambering over rocks and boulders wedged in the opening. A half-hour of scrambling and clambering later, her fingers were protesting and her knees were scabbed, but she was through.

The other side of the ridge was shaded from the descending sun, and half a kilometer away she saw a few trees, low and weary things with bits of green stubbornly clinging to their branches. She worked her way toward the shade and shelter they offered, and wearily dropped into the dust beneath them. Then, another sip from the water bottle and a battle against the urge to guzzle.

For a few moments she contemplated preparing a fire, but her body **vetoed **her brain and instead pressed for sleep. _Treacherous _body.

Her head sank back against the hard, knotted tree trunk, and darkness folded around her.

* * *

_She could hear water drumming on corrugated metal seventy-three meters and twelve centimeters overhead, along one of the ventilation shafts. That was a familiar place, a free place with air from outside brushing down into the facility. She knew about it - they all knew about it, and it hung there like a taunt, a way out that let freedom drift past them but was guarded and warded so tightly they would never see it._

_She hated it, but every night she went up there before she fell asleep. As long as it was there, the concept of hope never faded._

_Or at least, that was how it had been for a long while, but now . . . ._

_She lay on her bed. There were no sheets or covers; they didn't trust her with them after she began tearing them apart, worried she was going to start making garrotes out of them. The rest of the room was bare save for a desk, a plastic chair, and a small toilet. They were too smart to leave things she could break into sharp edges or twist into picks. The walls were blank, and light only filtered in from the tiny window on the door that opened into the hallway beyond. This was her home for the last two years._

_It was October 9, two years into her imprisonment. She remembered it clearly. It was a special day. Because_

You're dreaming

_In the dream, River blinked. Yes, this was a special day. She remembered it very clearly._

_She lay on the bed, but stood in the corner watching herself lay there. In the dream, River was thin, pale, her hair loose and stringy and unkempt, curled around into a tight ball. The dream-River looked on memory-River, and saw memory-River sobbing and shaking._

_October 9 was a very special day, she remembered. It was the day she had realized-_

" _. . .not . . . not . . . never not ever never . . . ." memory-River whispered, hugging her knees to her chest._

_Dream-River watched herself with detached curiosity as the sobs intensified, and she started to sit up. She shook her head, sniffling a few times, and then climbed up off the bed._

_Dream-River and memory-River both knew what was happening. From her perspective, dream-River watched her younger self as she rose, wiped her nose, turned to face the wall, and then reared back before slamming her forehead into the blank plaster-concrete._

_It was a dull, vicious impact, and memory-River toppled backward to the floor, blood dribbling down her forehead. She rose shakily to her feet a few moments later, wobbling and shivering, tears still running down her face. She let out an anguished shriek as she rose and charged the wall, slamming into it again._

_October 9 was the day she had finally accepted that Simon was never going to come for her._

_Memory-her flopped on the floor, lying still for several moments before trying to rise again, intent on killing herself in the only way they offered. Repeated, self-inflicted blunt trauma to the head could cause death or long-term brain damage if she did it enough, and either way would end the purgatory she'd spent the last couple of years in._

_She got to her hands and knees before the door burst open._

_Memory-River shrieked again and tried to resist as the orderlies and guards poured into the room. She managed to pop one knee with a lashing foot, and blacken an eye, before they wrestled her to the ground and shoved tranquilizers into her veins. She kept struggling, fighting, and screaming until they took effect, and finally went limp._

_She stood in her lucid dream, watching herself, and saw the pitiful, despairing child they'd built her into. A cavalcade of emotions rode into her as dream-River looked upon memory-River: bubbling hatred for the people that did this to her, intermixed with flares of sharp, needle-like grief for the time she'd lost, intermixed in a whirlwind of different sorts of emotional pain._

_October 9 was a special day. It the first day she'd wanted to die. But the next days would be worse, she knew._

_On October 14, the day after they released her from the medical bay with no long-term injuries (praise be to modern medicine), she would meet John._

* * *

River opened her eyes, goosebumps emerging from her skin to _complain _in conjunction with the shivers. A chilly night **galloped **around her, _brushing her _with a low-temperature embrace that reminded River she'd chosen to take a nap on a desert planet.

The shivers kept intensifying as she sat there, pushing away the metal cobwebs of her dreams. Her arms and legs moved of their own accord, taking another dose of painkillers, then unfolding around her like a wakening spider, and her mind sat back and watched with disinterest as she gathered kindling from the trees around her. A fire started soon afterward, borne of **mechanical motions** and **stolen knowledge.**

She sat for a while, the feeble tickling of the heat from the little campfire suppressing the goosebumps.

A while became a long while, the fire dying down as the sun started to rise. A weary not-sleep fugue settled over her as she watched the sun come up, and some part of her realized it had nothing to do with physical exhaustion.

She didn't want to get up, but an insistent, contrary _voice _sounded in her ears, pushing her to stand. Its _words _were unclear, but the **emotion** in it, the _**stubborn refusal to surrender**_ and lay down, echoed in _his gibberish-words._

He wasn't really there. River knew where Mal was: lying still between life and death back on _Serenity_. But that didn't change the fact that she could hear him, yelling words of encouragement and defiance to her, his voice sending electrical jolts through her body and pushing River to her feet.

Had to keep moving. Had to get to safety. Had to survive.

River gathered her gear and stepped out into the heavy sunlight, and resumed her march.

The day wore on. Distances calculated themselves in her head, and she estimated she was halfway to the village she'd seen overhead. Tomorrow she should be able to reach the village.

Progress was unsuitable, as the planet turned and the star passed overhead. **Heat **pulsed through her, forcing sweat down her brow and over the rest of her body, dragging out the discomfort. Throat was parched and burning and gummy with surprising _celerity_.

The urge to empty her canteen was growing exponentially with each hour, but she kept it under control by computing random mathematical problems in her head as she trudged across the sand and dust. Simple geometric problems were first, but she found the abstract nature of the problems boring without concrete applications. She focused on economic trends, figuring up trade interactions between individual moons orbiting a single planet and extrapolating from there. It was an engaging mental exercise that occupied her mind over the next few kilometers, and it kept her mind sharp and focused _(minimal _blurs _and __**bolds**__)_ and her perceptions off the pain in her ribs.

Additionally, it kept her mind off the _voices _she was certain she wasn't actually hearing, and the occasional crunch of sand beneath _boots that weren't hers._

She stopped to rest wherever shade offered itself – beneath overhangs and ridges left from when the planet was dust and wind without life. She took a fresh round of painkillers, then ate, steadily, like a machine, and when she'd judged enough rest had been had, she arose and advanced into the sun, like

_-Serenity Valley, leaning into a charge against a machinegun emplacement, head low, rifle barking, ducking from boulder to sandbag to rise to trench, wondering when a dark-armored form would get lucky and whether it would be felt before she died-_

She pushed on.

The sun edged to the western end of the horizon. A small dust storm picked up, forcing her to wrap her head up in cloth and squint her eyes, hunting for a rock or tree or anything to take cover behind. The wind intensified as the minutes passed, sand pouring into her clothes, scratching and biting and grating down her skin. Her legs wobbled.

_fingers at her back – his back to hers, hand holding her arm and helping her stand _

She set her feet, _phantom sensation _along her body, as if someone was holding her up. She closed her eyes, shaking, mostly certain that she was simply confusing memory for reality.

The "mostly" troubled her.

Sensory perceptions extended outwards, her mind not affected by _**mindless wind**_, and _reflected _off objects. It glided over sand, through shifting dust, and careened off trees and rocks. She triangulated her position _(Jayne's tracking skills murmured into her ears) _and pushed forward, through the dust storm.

Shelter was a small cavern set into another ridge, maybe three or four meters deep. She pushed into the mercifully dark safety within, and dropped to the dirt. Panting escaped her lips, surprising her.

_not conditioned for long-term overland movement_

Once again, River was confronted with how stupid it was for her to have come out here on her own. How arrogant and thoughtless _(selfish!)_ to think she could do this by herself.

Those **black thoughts **dripped down the walls around her as she waited out the dust storm. She was under no illusions as to what would have happened if it had been worse, and that understanding reinforced the _ugly, pungent notions_that were seeping around her.

A mutter of _memory_, and a _sunny __**smile **_cut into those thoughts, and River closed her eyes. A _cheerful voice __curled__ around her_, speaking **words **as indistinct as Mal's had been that morning, and it kept the _**darkness**_ at bay. River clenched her fingers, touching Kaylee's bubbling optimism. _**Heavy words **_followed them, reciting a mantra that was **cyan **with understanding and forgiveness – words that were more distinct, if in meaning if not in actual content.

Yes, this had been a mistake, his voice advised her. But understanding that mistake and moving beyond those failings was equally important. Was that not why she had come out here, to face herself on her own?

River shook her head. She didn't know.

The storm didn't dissipate anytime soon, but the cavern was safe. She made another fire, ate, and settled her head against the wall, _**Kaylee and Book**_ hovering close in her mind to keep the black thoughts at bay.

* * *

_The room was lit with the same institutionally-cold illumination as the rest of the facility – white light with chilly metal and concrete walls and floors. A circular table of plastic, bolted to the floor and with rounded edges, sat in the middle of the room. A few plastic chairs sat in the room, all lightweight and made of flexible material. There were no jutting sconces for the lights, no large vents to crawl through, no readily-accessible screws, writing implements, or anything in the little room that could conceivably be used as a weapon._

_She sat in the chair opposite the door, absently rubbing her wrists. This was the first time she'd gone without restraints in days, after the suicide attempt. It was tied in with her lucidity; a fresh round of injections had chased the most chaotic parts of her mind down, suppressing them and allowing her to talk, think, and act like a rational person. It was a fleeting moment of clarity that she hated, because she knew there would be more cutting and experimentation later, which would ruin all of it._

_The door opened, and River looked up. Her eyes locked on the metal door as it swung outward, and a dozen possibilities for escape swam up, took shape, and were hammered into being. But just as quickly, she tossed them aside, mathematics proving that no matter how fast she got up and bolted across the room, she couldn't get out before someone responded and issued an alarm._

_Instead, she watched and waited, tense and upright, as a man entered the room. He was about her age, maybe a couple of years older than her sixteen, a little on the short side, with a slender, athletic build, handsome features (barely remembered what "handsome" meant, surrounded by ugly fat doctors and technicians) and short, pale blond hair. He wore a black uniform that matched those of the guards, and she recognized his features as being one of the security guards she'd seen in the hallways and labs._

_She stiffened._

_There was nothing there, from him. No words, no written or empty pages, no colors or tastes or scents drifting from him. There was an emptiness within and around him. He was Blank._

_And then he did something she never expected._

"_Hello, River," he said, and smiled. He set a folder down on the table, and the door closed quietly behind him._

_Everyone who spoke to her referred to her as "One-Three-Seven" or "River Tam" or simply "Tam." No one had spoken her first name except the last counselor she'd had – and murdered._

"_My name is Johnathan," he said, sitting down opposite her. She watched his movements, noting the precise poise of his body language – similar to a predator eyeing another that he wasn't sure would attack him. There was respect there, and caution, but not fear. "Johnathan Garis."_

_She didn't respond. River scanned his features, locked into a patient and understanding smile, and wondered what they were trying to accomplish._

_Silence passed in the room for several moments, and she didn't speak, and he finally settled back a bit. He turned his head._

"_Cut them off," he called. A tingle of confusion filtered through the walls._

"_Excuse me?" replied a voice over the intercom._

"_I said cut them off," John snapped. "All the recording devices."_

"_But-"_

"_She won't say anything while you're listening in," he said, patiently, and glanced to her. He gave her a short, quick grin. "You won't get anything useful anyway. You know she knows about you. Give the damn girl some privacy."_

_Anger passed over her, and she fought back the urge to smile at the consternation he was causing._

"_Protocol-" the voice began._

"_The hell with protocol," John said. "Cut them off."_

_A few seconds later, the anger grew, and the distant single of electronic surveillance vanished. In its stead, she caught a new timbre of frustration._

"_Better," John said, visibly relaxing. River felt her own muscles loosening, just a little bit. Every minute of the last two years had been spent under surveillance, and to be left alone like this all of a sudden was mostly confusing._

"_Why?"_

_The first word she'd spoken made John frown, and he sat back, thinking for a few seconds. It was a harrowing few, as she couldn't tell what was going through his mind as he did so._

"_You tried to take your own life," he said, his voice quiet. "That has . . . some people disturbed."_

_She stared at him, the loosening muscles in her back starting to tighten again. Another counselor._

_The obstinance she was feeling at that must have registered on her face, because John's eyes widened a hair, and he sat up._

"_I'm not a counselor," he said. "I'm not here to poke and prod so we can find out how the treatments have been affecting your mind."_

_She didn't respond, instead keeping her eyes locked on his. He opened his mouth to continue, but then John paused, and pressed his lips together. Uncertainty crossed his features, and he finally let out a quick and quiet breath._

"_They wanted me to poke you," he said, shaking his head. "To play counselor and talk you out of trying suicide again. But . . . why?"_

"_Why what?" she asked after a heartbeat._

"_Why now?" he asked her. "Two years. W- You have been locked up here for so long, and they've lost so many others due to suicide, but you didn't break, until a few nights ago. I don't understand why."_

_She didn't reply immediately. Part of her mind was processing the answer to his question, while another part of her tried to figure out what his real angle was. And a not insignificant part of her marked the near slip of his tongue and tried to figure out what he meant by it._

_But the majority of her was simply locked on damage control, and his words had just stabbed into a still-fresh and gaping emotional wound, the result of that ugly, hope-crushing realization that she was alone._

_It took her a while. Three abortive attempts to speak, to which he waited and watched with patience and interest. An analytical section of her warned River that he may just be asking her questions to gauge her responses, but talking to someone whose intentions didn't flash in front of her in giant bold letters was a novel experience after two years of seeing and feeling the scientists' intentions slithering through her skin._

"_I am alone," she finally admitted, staring down at the table. "Deep down, beneath he ground, where I will never make a sound."_

_The pain from that realization began to rise up again, but his next words cut through it before it started._

"_No," John whispered, and she looked up at him. He leaned forward, over the table, and earnest concern scrawled itself over his thin features. "No, River. You aren't."_

_His fingers clenched tightly, and she saw pain in his eyes. No enhanced senses or memetic emotional-detection training was required to see it._

"_You're not alone," he said in the silence that followed._

* * *

River kicked and clawed her way back to reality, and found herself hissing and cursing and pushing away that _memory-dream _as hard as she could. There was a flash of pain as she poked her ribs by accident, and that woke her up quite efficiently.

After downing more painkillers, she hauled herself back into _reality _to find it was still dark. The sandstorm had ended, and the whole camp was coated in a light layer of dust. The cloth she'd pulled over her face had shielded her from the worst of it, but _itchy _was crawling over her skin.

She pulled herself into a sitting position, and tried to figure out what parts of that dream had been truth and what was simply truth-like. It was hard to tell what parts were memory and what parts were real. The bit of Book that she had seen was not her memory, but that didn't mean it wasn't _a_ memory. So much of who and what she had been blurred together into a vaguely familiar mass of _thought _and _concept _and _sensation_.

Solutions did not become apparent, and she finally settled back into a light doze that lasted for a few hours. It was uncomfortable, due to the sand and dust and heat and the mounting sunburns, but she managed.

A noise drew her out of the doze, just before dawn: rumbling engines, far above her shelter. She cocked an ear, as the entirely biologically impossible saying went, and listened to the ship. She put it as a Kowloon, the same model that had belonged to the pirates that had shot her down, though that didn't mean it was their ship. Distance was about five hundred meters overhead, and direction put it as traveling away - thanks to the Doppler effect.

It kept going, and didn't return. After listening for another half hour, weariness came back and _sternly _**reminded **her that rest was needed. Dozing resumed, _with notable begrudging and brushing of itchy __hindquarters__._

The next day was clear and cooler, and thus more optimistic. That worried her; statistically, optimistic beginnings led to ugly endings.

Or maybe that was Mal or Jayne's unending cynicism nesting in her.

She made good time that day, pushing over the ridge and in the direction of the town. Estimates on timeframe said she would be there one hour before solar apex, generously applying time needed to rest. The subsequent trudge through the sands proved the estimate to be good; though unpleasant as before, she was getting accustomed to it.

Best of all, no hallucinations this time. Focusing on the task kept herself from imagining footsteps following her, or familiar voices urging her onwards through the harsh desert sun.

Two hours before the local star took its throne high in the sky, she mounted the top of a rocky hill and looked upon the town. It was maybe a kilometer and a half away, down a gentle slope that was strewn with boulders and a few scraggly trees. The houses were the standard eclectic mixture of wooden buildings coupled with a few plastic-and-metal prefabricated structures. A slender rivers weaved through the middle of the town, and misplaced greenery hugged its banks. She saw a few tilled fields, irrigation channels, and a fenced area for livestock. Cattle and a few horses roamed the kilometers-wide pasture. There were a few hundred people according to the local guide, and the numbers present matched the estimate.

Good. River started down the slope, and found a spring in her step that must have been misplaced. It would have to be returned, as she shouldn't have springs in her movements. _Too much optimism._

Even at this distance, she tasted the _awareness _that edged over the town as she walked down the slope. Someone probably had spotted her, but instead of suspicion or alarm there were only a few sprouts of **curiosity**, _orange-yellow in its interest_.

Then a **yellow-red **burst of realization pulsed across the landscape, washing over her, followed by a _thin, vicious echo of __**spiky hatred**_. She paused, blinking, not sure where that came from, and then distantly heard something else.

Engines. Familiar engines.

Placement took only a few seconds, and she spun, turning her head while her fingers found sun-warmed metal, the steel rasping against her holster as she drew the pistol. Her eyes flicked up into the blue sky, zeroing in on the **spiky hate **that kept poking at her.

The pirate ship that she'd dodged two nights ago was a speck of _darkness _in the _azure ceiling overhead_. It was far away, seeming to be almost irrelevant.

It wasn't. That distance was trivial to a ship that made interplanetary voyages standard, and worse still, it was **aware**.

That _barbed hate _was directed at River, specifically, and it was en route to where she stood. They knew where she was, and the survivors were coming back for revenge.

She spun around and bolted. The town was only a kilometer away now, and it had a marshal and probably a local militia. At the very least, it had walls that she could hide behind.

A flicker of fear ran through her as he legs pumped, _launching_ her over and around rocks and brush and trees, _little branches slapping_ at her as she passed. Would the pirates simply shoot up the town to reach her? Was she placing innocents at risk just to save herself?

That almost caused her to stop, but she kept processing the situation.

The **hate** she felt was vicious and personal, but singular. She could only catch a little bit of _the sound and scents __**and tastes **_from the oncoming ship, enough for maybe three or four people at the best, and only one of them was possessed of the distinct _timbre_ of personal hatred for her. That likely meant that pirates' captain.

She frowned in annoyance. Said captain was a coward, apparently, if he had not been out with his men when she'd killed him. The hatred was entirely irrational for a man who had sent underlings to die in his stead, but then again, rational hate was a _rare gem _for any _mind's caves_ to **harbor**.

_dammit, getting metaphorical again, bad sign_

Evidence: cowardly pirate captain. Likely low on manpower. Heavily armed vessel, personal vendetta. Also, _amorality _and _**irrationality**_. Conclusion: They wouldn't hesitate to shoot up the town to find her.

Recommended course of action: minimize innocent casualties. If she entered the town, and someone died for that, it would partially be her fault. Therefore, **unacceptable**.

_**Pangs of alarm **_were running through the town as people saw the incoming ship and the girl fleeing from it. _Golden **bursts **of combative defiance _rang out here and there as men and women ran for weapons. They'd fight the pirates, if it came to it, and that fact _stabbed a hook blade_ into her gut. People would die if she ran into the town, almost certainly.

River came to a halt. The ship was closing in, estimated distance putting it within striking range in the next couple of minutes.

The _**hatred **_was becoming more pronounced, more definable, and with it she saw intentions. The pirate captain wanted personal revenge _(blurred at the __edges__ by alcohol - the irrationality became clearer) _which meant face-to-face. He wasn't going to blast her from the sky when he could put a bullet in her stomach and watch her bleed out.

River turned, searching for defensible ground. If she stayed in the open, he would come out to meet her. He might bombard the area around her to knock her flat, but he would come out to meet her afterwards. That was her chance to end this without hurting anyone else.

One hundred and seventy-three meters to the east, there was a tumble of boulders that formed a vaguely crescent shape. It would form a fine defense against small-caliber weapons and maybe heavier firepower. At the least, it would shelter her from shrapnel.

Just had to get there.

River took off, her legs launching her across the rocky slope and toward the tumble of boulders. Her mind ran calculations of distance, velocity, weapons range, and fuel economy while her legs and torso and arms pushed her and kept her weaving among the stones and dust. Her awareness tied in with her body's movements to _form an impromptu coalition government existing for the sole purpose of getting her to safety without smashing her face on a __**rock**__._ Another part of her took a brief inventory of her available weapons and gear, cataloging the grenade, guns, and blades she carried. Still another sector of her brain was cataloguing her injuries and how they would influence her defense. Those cracked ribs were slowing her movements down quite a bit, even if she was doing a _smashing _job of ignoring the pain in favor of petty things like survival.

And finally, one tiny voice at the very tail end of all of the previous processes was screaming a number of horrified obscenities and telling her to never trust to optimistic beginnings again.

Three cheers for mental multitasking.

Working together, her brain and body and enhanced senses were able to work out a reasonable defensive plan once she arrived at the tumble of sheltering boulders, now about fifty meters away, and River plotted out a route that would take her there with minimal risk of _unexpected, granite-induced unconsciousness_. It looked like it would work.

Then, to paraphrase Jayne at his most eloquent, reality took a sizable, pungent defecation all over that plan.

The pirate ship was fast. Too fast, at least for her. River made it close to forty meters to the shelter of the rock tumble, leaping over a boulder, when the modified freighter ripped overhead, swooping over her, rotating its maneuvering thrusters down toward the ground. It slid sideways and swept in front of her, maybe thirty meters away and fifteen high, kicking up a storm of sand and dust that forced her to come to a halt, covering her mouth and squinting her eyes.

Then, the thrusters fired.

From that distance, she could feel the heat, but it wasn't anything more than an uncomfortable baking sensation, like being too close to a toaster oven. More difficult to resist, however, was the **sledgehammer **of pure force that slammed down into the dirt and then swept outward. It smacked into River like a _pillow of suitably epic proportions_, lifting her up and launching her backward.

She _realized _where she was headed maybe half an instant before the boulder she'd just cleared intercepted her, and a flash of white lanced through her whole body, chased immediately by darkness.

It lasted only a few seconds, and adrenaline sent her thrashing back up into the real world, where pain was waiting to greet her. It **pulled her into a bear hug**, focusing on her back, and when she inhaled, the agony was tangible in her chest and backbones. Another **embracing **_**grasp **_**of pain **coiled about her leg, like a _very friendly snake_ that was hugging her as tight as it could. It was in her lower left leg.

She couldn't begin to catalogue where she was hurt and how serious it was. Only the most clear injuries were obvious: battered back _(not broken but hurt nonetheless)_ and a broken left leg, lower shin.

She lay there for a moment, gasping, the pain _rolling _up through her back scrambling any attempts she could make to try to stand. She _**gagged **_a bit on the blowing sand, but it was starting to settle down, and with it was the engine of the ship, its throat roar shifting back to an idle rumble. It had landed.

Then there were footsteps. They were inaudible over the din of the ship's engines but the vibrations running through the sand were clear enough to her.

Inventory. Laertes, melee weapon against guns, sheathed. Ineffective. Her pistol was in the dirt, one meter and seventeen centimeters away. Might as well be on another world. Shotgun, damaged in the engine blast, warped. Also, on her back. Couldn't grab and draw it without getting shot.

Another option presented itself.

The footsteps rumbled closer, preceded by high-_pitched _**flickers **of **vengeance and hatred**. That familiar, personal hatred. Kind of like Mal's.

" . . . but there's witnesses in that town over thataway!" someone was saying, protest altering the timbre of his voice.

"They can report us to the marshal all they want," snarled another voice, words echoing with hate. She recognized his mind as the one that wanted her **dead**. "She killed four of my crew. I'm getting' payback."

He was close. His **intentions **swirled around him like a . . . swirling . . . force.

_bad idea to **Wash **now_

River clenched her teeth, jaw aching, her legs tingling and vertebrae loosing a symphony of protest. But she stayed still, knowing that the pirate's leader - had to be the leader, she could hear the swishing of his captain-y coat as he stalked toward her - would get close.

His boot nudged her shoulder.

"Still alive," he snarled. "Good. I want you to see this, you little _gorram _bitch."

His boot hooked under her shoulder, and the pirate captain swung River over, flipping her onto her back.

She opened her eyes, locking them onto the man. He was heavyset, wearing a big gray overcoat, with a thick neck, thicker beard, and excessively thick features. _(thick, thick, thick)_ He glared down at her, but that glare swiftly shifted to surprise and then fear.

After all, River had primed one of the grenades taken from his dead crew, and her finger was pointedly depressing the dead man's switch.

_Tension _flopped over them all like a misplaced whale.

It was a full five seconds before the pirate captain blinked, and the anxiety and fear cocooned and immobilized him.

_Carpe diem._

"You are aware of this grenade's capabilities," River spoke into the heavy silence, which ignored the ship's laboring engines. _(unnecessary anthropomorphization, why would the ship's engines be laboring-)_

_focus focus focus!_

"If you shoot me , the grenade detonates," she continued.

The pirate took a long, slow breath, and she could see the _pages _in his **mind-book**, flipping and scribbling rapidly, in _sharp, quick, rough script_. He was factoring in how fast he could escape if he shot her, through the unexpected terror he was trying to control.

He had an advantage, considering River's own fear was an **icy dagger **stabbing her in the back over and over again. But at least it was a _cold_ dagger, and she wasn't sweating or shivering.

"The device generates a lethal incendiary blast within a fifteen meter radius," she continued. She couldn't suppress the anxiety, so she worked around it. Memories of Simon and Zoe and Book welled up, and she injected their words and cold calmness into her voice. "The dead man's trigger is armed. You will have less than two seconds to get outside the blast radius."

She brought up a bit of Jayne and Mal, and use it smirk at him.

"How good is your hundred meter dash?" she added, ignoring the _sharp, biting _personal fear that the barrel of that weapon brought her.

The pirate considered his options, long and slow. She could **see **him debating, reason and anger in a forum with survival moderating the discussion, but the ultimate conclusion was inevitable. He was hateful and angry, but he didn't want to die.

Seconds later, the man leaned back, easing his weapon down.

"Let's not do anything stupid," he said, holding up his free hand in a placating gesture. His other slowly holstered his pistol.

"Back away," she said, and poured Zoe's coldest glacier-words-plus-thoughts-of-killing into her voice. "Get back on your ship. Leave. If I think you're going to try to kill me, I'll take you with me."

The pirate's face screwed up in anger and more _**hatred **__(vast quantities of that emotion were obvious, which ran through the pores of his skin and dripped around him to steam on the desert sand)_

"Fine," he said, long and slow, and began to walk backwards, hands up to soothe her. His caution didn't extend to his eyes, and his next words were a snarl from the _generic predatory animal_ nesting in his throat.

"But I ain't forgettin' this," he warned. "I'm gonna find you and kill you, mark my words."

River kept **cold **on her face, letting her annoyance at his hypocrisy (after all, his men had been coming to kill or do worse things to her) and her fingers remained steady on the grenade.

He was four meters away when an image _leapt _out of the pirate's mind then, clear as a hologram: _the captain's boots on the ramp of his ship thirty meters away, his pistol in hand, several bullets lodged in River's chest, then fire as the grenade erupted_.

The **icy fear **jabbing into her spine became _red-hot panic_ as she understood the thought-image-painting. He was going to get out of range of the grenade and then kill her where she lay, or at least shoot her until she dropped the grenade, which would kill her anyway.

River couldn't keep the sudden panic that brought out of her features, but the pirate captain was already seven meters away and quickly backing up, so he didn't realize she had divined his intentions for a moment. He kept backing away, reaching ten meters before his _textures _changed, and she knew that he knew that she knew that he was planning on-

River twisted, looking up at the pistol that she'd dropped, lying a meter away, just out of reach. It was only a little past her fingertips' reach, but that was far enough.

The captain spun and started to dash toward his ship, and that made up her mind. River's arm pumped, and the grenade leapt from her fingers, the metal _willing her flesh a forlorn goodbye as it sailed __**to its destiny **__to __**burn **__and-_

_focus!_

She twisted around as the grenade flew, and lurched toward the pistol, kicking with her good leg while the broken one lay limp. She slid across the sand, fingers scrabbling for the pistol. Behind her, she could _feel _the grenade as it hit soil, landing between the pirate captain and his ship. The pilot, still standing on the ramp, spun and bolted inside, while the captain pulled himself up short and dove backwards to the edge of the grenade's burst radius.

Heat. Overpressure wave. Burnt sand hurtled through the air, the rest turned to glass. Heat _licked _at her, singeing her exposed legs.

Her battered body lurched again, a few centimeters closer, and her broken limb dragged on the ground. **White **_**pain**_filled her vision, and she gasped, throat suddenly raw. Her fingers slid over metal while the _bright agony _shooting up from her leg overrode higher thought processes, and her skin communed with the metal.

Hatred and fury stabbed through the, and River slithered around, pushing through the _sharp brightness _arching through her body, and saw the captain.

He was on fire, his overcoat blazing with clinging incendiaries. One arm was covered in savage black blisters, his hair was burnt off, and he staggered toward her, a hurricane of red-black hate blazing around him as he raised his pistol, face locked in a grimace that was _tattooed with murder_.

River's pistol shot toward him, but not before he pulled the trigger. She jerked, something impacting in her stomach and sending waves of **painful numbness **rolling up through her-

_oxymoron_

- and throwing off her aim by a hair. Her first shot hit him in the burnt arm, blowing through flesh that was already aflame. He didn't even react except to stagger forward, lining her up for another shot. His pistol cracked again, barely audible over the roaring engine behind him and the scattered bits of flame left from the grenade.

Her head snapped sideways, a new pain blasting through her skull and dazzling River, sending _light _and _fuzzy _spiraling through **all seventeen senses**-

_focus. remain functional. ignore the sticky wa_r**m**_**pain****n**um**bd****azzLe****d**azeconcus_si_on_

He staggered, roaring something indistinct at her as he fell to one knee, and tried to raise his pistol.

She closed her eyes, found him, and pulled the trigger.

**Hate **died instantly, leaving only the sound of thundering engines_. Fear and selfishness _echoed off the hull of the ship, _yellow and green chimes_, and the pirate ship's pilot took to the sky, abandoning his foolish captain.

Weariness fell over River, and she lay her head back, eyes still closed.

It took her a moment to **reboot **her brain, as adrenaline _danced its merry way _through her body.

Catalogue of injuries: hairline fracture in shin. Multiple fractured or broken ribs. Lacerations, bruising of back, vertebrae, possibly wrenched shoulder and back muscles. Bullet lodged in gut, precise location unknown. Head trauma, ninety plus percent probability of concussion _(postulate round ricocheting off boulder and bouncing off skull, or maybe shrapnel knocked loose by same) _Bruised jaw. Sunburns.

_**Warmth **_flowed out of her stomach, pooling on the ground around her, as indistinct periods of time passed. It felt subjective, but was doubtless objective.

This wasn't like the last time she'd been shot. Last time she had been able to _feel _the round, buried in her flank, nicking the kidney and sending spikes of electrical agony through her every time she moved.

And last time, she'd felt _**red **_as Jayne had torn her attackers limb from limb.

No one to do the same this time.

She wanted to try to stand. The _weariness_ disagreed, and gently pushed her down into the dirt, telling her to rest. It was difficult to argue, even with Mal's stubbornness.

Voices, distant, _**weaving **_through the wind. Footsteps.

A shadow fell over her. Her eyes opened. Fingers tried to tighten around her pistol, but it was gone.

Someone was yelling something, their voice indistinct, echoing down _the tunnel _of her ears but getting lost on the way.

Her eyes were **weighted **with **cast iron and lead**. She tried to open them, but it was _closing time._

_The lights went out._

* * *

_She screamed. A dream of sleep wrapped around her, a still illusion of quiet and death. She _knew _it was a dream, but that didn't change the sights lurking around her._

_Still bodies. Closed eyes of children and adults, curled up, quiet, peaceful._

_Doomed._

_She backed away from that image, from the bone-white buildings in the distance, the cold green of blooming trees, and the adults and children lying still – deathly still, clouds of rotten brown apathy drifting over them. The clouds turned toward her, reaching up toward her as she retreated, noxious spears of slow, gentle death reaching for her nose and mouth._

River

_She held her breath as she turned to run, to get away from the to-be-dead and the stink of kindly death._

Something closed around her face

River! It's

"_-Simon!" he hissed, close to her face. "It's your brother!"_

_A frigid chill ran through her, blurry in her perceptions. Groggy chemical fugue mixed with shattered mental disorientation to make a martini mix of confusion._

_But someone was close. Close and strange but horribly familiar._

_Warm metal locked over her wrists, and sharp piercing steel poked into her forehead. Strong fingers sheathed in worry and love and fear moved over her arms, and the cuffs loosened, and the piercing spear in her head withdrew. Dribbles of blood slithered over her skin, a clear and ringing sensation amidst the fugue._

_He withdrew, and her eyes opened, and an old emotion surged into her chest, stabbing into a painful wound that was long since scabbed over. Agony seared through her, but the pain was exhilarating, not awful, and adrenaline surged into her, beating back the fugue._

_He was here. Three long gorram years where she'd left hope and the past behind, knowing deep down that he'd never come for her, and he was here, now, afraid and caring and worried and real._

_She threw herself up and surged after him, and spoke a name she'd been convinced she would never say to his face again._

"_Si-_

* * *

"-mon . . . ."

Her throat hurt, and was dry as she spoke. A faint _press _of attention drifted over her, as someone noticed her.

That should have concerned River, but a blanket of **warmth **and _safety _wrapped around her, a sensation that felt alien after everything else that happened recently.

_only been two weeks_

But felt like months of pain and distance.

Strains of music, old and pleasant sounds of a string instrument she couldn't identify, slid over her ears, lulling her back into darkness.

It felt like _Serenity_.

She opened her eyes again later, still _warm _and _safe _and wrapped up in that blanket of _security_. The music had stopped. Her eyes flicked around the room, seeing worked stone bricks on three walls and a rice-paper door. Paper lanterns powered by batteries cast a warm orange glow around the room, and an open window carried a hot breeze into the little chamber, along with the faint scent of baking bread. Outside, it was dark.

Her weapons and gear sat on a shelf across the room. That was a positive sign; if she was a prisoner they would be locked up elsewhere, instead of in easy reach. Laertes in particular was a comforting sight, the sword untouched save for the scabbard being cleaned of dust.

Aches rolled up through her body, and her leg was raised in traction. An IV was in her arm, and she could hear the beeping of a monitor as it heralded her good health in its quiet, insistent way. She could feel bandages wrapping around her stomach and leg and head, and a heavy weight of weariness settled over her, pushing her back into sleep.

Before she closed her eyes, she sensed someone near her. She looked up, and saw an old man, face weathered in worry and smile lines, a long white mustache and beard hanging down from his chin and contrasting with his ruddy skin. Black, wide-sleeved robes wrapped around him, belted by a red sash.

She opened her mouth to speak, but he reached down, hand covering her mouth with weathered, calloused fingers. Through his hand, she could feel the _warmth _and **compassion **that hung around the room, concentrated.

"Shh, child," the old man whispered. He had a voice like a **cathedral**, deep and powerful but welcoming, a voice equally suited to shouting in battle and laughing with friends.

"You have had a rough journey," he whispered. "They brought you here to heal, and so you shall. Rest. You are safe here."

A flash of contrariness ran through her, and she tried to speak again. A word starting with "Wh" began in her chest, and made it to her throat before _halting_, and she was too tired to push it the rest of the way.

"You are in my hospital, child," the old man said, the smile fading, apparently picking up what she meant to say. "I am Doctor Abu Mustafa Muhammad Ibn Haroun al-Rashid ," he continued, the whole, formal Arabic name flowing out like water. "And you have my promise that you are safe."

There was truth in his words, and she didn't argue with him. Her eyes closed, and darkness fell over River again, _warm and enfolding and safe_.

* * *

_The bed was soft and warm, with orange lighting at odds with every bed she'd known for the last three years. But more importantly, for the first time in three years, she wasn't alone._

_Simon came over, and safety hung around his shoulders, a gentle mantle of care that was almost painful to feel after so long. He spoke gently to her, and she responded without thinking, her mouth talking about sleep without consulting her brain first. None of it, not the ship nor the people nor the warmth nor Simon, seemed more than insubstantial whispers._

_She stopped as he sat beside her, pulling the cover up over her, and she reached up. Her fingers touched his face, tracing over his cheekbones and nose and mouth._

_Reality flowed up through her fingers. This was truth. The bed and the ship and the people and her brother were the truth._

_Wet hotness gathered behind her eyes._

"_I didn't think you'd come for me," she blurted. A hint of a smile appeared on his face._

"_Well, you're a dummy," he replied._

_She grabbed him, pulling him into a clumsy hug, and hot tears ran over her cheeks._

* * *

The **memory-dream **ended, and she was _washed _into the dark, quiet ocean of slumber in-between . . . and for what seemed the first time in years, River wished she could have stayed in that dream.

* * *

_**Author's Note**_: This chapter took a long time to write, primarily due to the length and amount of Riverthink. (Riverthink requires additional proofing on top of normal proofing, due to formatting) The chapter itself was heavily inspired by the _Avatar: The Last Airbender_ episode "Zuko Alone" which featured a similar situation, with the titular character having to hare off on his own, experiencing personal conflict and flashbacks while trying to survive. Another thing I wanted to make clear in this chapter is that River is _not_ invincible, as evidenced by how badly battered she ende dup being in this chapter. Maybe it's the _Dresden Files _influence working its magic (ha ha) on me, with its perpetually battered hero.

The next chapter will be another interlude that will deal with the rest of our intrepid crew who face a much, much darker enemy: _boredom._ And angst, too, but mostly boredom. We're going to shift away from River for a while (yay!) but rest assured we'll get back to her eventually - and also rest assured that, thankfully, she really is safe and sound for a while.

You may have noticed a scene that closely parallels a similar scene from the "Shepherd's Tale" comic. While the actual story itself is being disregarded for the purposes of this fic (the background for Book in this story is incompatible with the one told in the comic, as I had Book's background laid out years ago when I started writing this tale) I will be integrating whatever elements I can from that comic into the character's background that fit.

If there's anyone out there reading this who speaks proper Arabic, I apologize if I screwed up Dr. al-Rashid's name. I put some research into it, but I suspect that I screwed up _something._ If there's a problem, let me know. As an aside, I used Peter Renaday as my mental voice for Dr. al-Rashid's voice (for reference, he is the voice-actor for Duncan in _Dragon Age: Origins _and al-Mualim in _Assassin's Creed_)

Until next chapter . . . .


	66. Last Man: Prologue: Blizzard

_**Last Man: Prologue: Blizzard**_

The frigid rock of dirt and ice that passed for a habitable planet in this part of the Kalidesa system had a couple of different names. Its given name by English-speakers was, appropriately enough, Glacier. It had another name, given by the largest minority on the planet in their language, but no one on _Serenity_ spoke or could read Russian.

For the crew of the little Firefly freighter nestled in the hills, however, it went by a variety of names, none of them pleasant and most of them including the words "damn" and "cold."

They had landed on the southern hemisphere, near the tropical latitudes, where it was warm enough that the planet was constantly hurling snow every thirty-one-hour day-cycle. Jayne, true to his word, knew of one of a half-dozen old outposts that had been used by either smugglers or Independents which had been subsequently abandoned, and guided them into the most secluded one, between two canyons and set into a rocky ridge about fifty meters above the highest snow drift. It had been an old launch facility for drone fighters to defend the planet, but had been shut down a couple years into the war when the personnel and aircraft were needed on more active fronts. Since then, it hadn't seen use - at least not for its intended purpose.

_Serenity _was parked in the main transport and drone hangar, a wide chamber with enormous sliding doors at one end and strewn with old equipment that had been either too big or too worthless to bother stripping out of the complex. The place had been built for a full wing of aircraft, so despite the fact that _Serenity _massed twenty times the typical drone, the Firefly had plenty of room to settle in.

Which she and her crew had, for nearly a month and a half.

Zoë stood on the bridge, looking over the wide open hangar bay, one hand absently rubbing her swollen belly, now close to seven months along. Outside, she could see Simon and Kaylee inside the hangar. They'd found a battered old power-loader exoskeleton similar to the one she'd hijacked on the space station a while ago, and had made it her personal project to get the thing running again despite the better part of a decade's time of neglect. Simon, meanwhile, had been dragooned into helping her out.

Zoë let them. They didn't have much to do out here, waiting in the dark for so long, and she didn't want the crew getting cabin fever, which was why she kept them busy. With the ship grounded and not running the usual wear and tear of space travel, Kaylee and the rest of the crew didn't have to do so much maintenance on the freighter.

But even she had to admit that she was getting weary of sitting around. She understood that after something as ugly as what happened on Sirocco, they _had_ to lay low, but Zoë also knew that hiding like this wasn't productive to their long-term plans.

_Whatever those were_, she thought with a bit of cynicism, and she turned to leave the bridge.

Zoë couldn't help but notice that the ship was deathly quiet as she passed through the dining hall and continued on toward the engine room. The engine itself was spinning lazily, not needing to run fast or hard with the limited energy needs. All they had to worry about was keeping the lights on, the survival systems running, and the heater active. Without the drive propelling them through atmo or space, the power draw was minimal.

But _Serenity _herself was almost completely still, and it bothered her. Not like the hulks they'd salvaged before; at least in those cases, they were had a reason to be empty and lifeless. _Serenity _didn't.

She walked slowly down the steps, passing the darkened infirmary, and paused at her reflection in the window. She was wearing a loose dress suitable for maternity, which she'd picked up a few months ago, but it look incongruous on her. Even when she'd dressed up nicely, she didn't wear something so large and loose.

It marked her as vulnerable. Unable to fight or resist or otherwise hold her own, while she carried the little one.

She pulled herself away from her reflection and headed into the passenger area. The nearest door slid open, and she stepped inside, hearing the gentle thrumming and beeping of medical machinery.

Mal lay like she remembered him, still and quiet, chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. He was pale to the point of being nearly colorless, as a side effect of being inside so much, and it made him look even more unhealthy than he already was. She settled in beside her unconscious Captain, checking the machines and the readouts for anything unusual, particularly what Simon had taught them to keep an eye out for. Nothing had changed, thankfully.

The walls were lined with calligraphy that Inara had worked on in the time they'd had here. There was enough to fill a small volume, a series of intricate and delicate paint strokes that traced out names and concepts and defining them into works of precise artwork. Zoë could look over the scrollwork and tell which ones Inara had started on when Mal had first gone under and which were her more recent ones, simply by the cleanliness of the brushes and lines. Not to say she was a poor calligrapher, but her skill had taken a subtle but noticeable turn for the better from all the time she'd spent down here.

There were a few other bits of artwork scattered about. Wash's efforts at calligraphy looked more like abstract art, while Kaylee had painted some flowers on wood or canvas. Calligraphy wasn't her thing. There were some better efforts as well, likely Simon or Book's attempts. Jayne's contribution took on the form of a loaded pistol he'd put on the dresser beside Mal, saying that if Mal ever woke up, he might need it right away. Positive of him.

She turned back to Mal, and hesitated. She knew he couldn't hear her, but she still wanted to pick her words carefully.

"Sir," she started, and paused for a moment to breathe in and out. "I'm not sure what to do."

She hadn't said that to anyone. Not to her husband, not to the Shepherd - hell, she hadn't even really said them to herself.

"I know we have goals, but I don't know how to reach them," she continued. "River's gone, and every day that we don't spend looking for her is another day I worry she's gone forever. And I know we need to find you proper attention, but I don't know who to trust. The whole 'Verse is still buzzing over Sirocco, and I don't want to risk us by leaving too soon."

She paused, thinking to herself, and shook her head.

"I've never been one to hesitate charging into a risky situation if someone else was in the lead," she murmured. "Even while I was doing recon work, I always knew I had you back at camp, and our superiors, to fall back on. I could lead, or fight, or work if I knew someone above me knew what they were doing."

Another pause, then the words kept coming out.

"Do you know what scared me the most, Mal?" she asked. "When you were taken by Niska. I was scared for Wash. God, I was so afraid for him, but I did my damndest to keep that fear under control.

"And when we went into Sirocco . . . " she shook her head again. "I shot a little girl. She was dangerous and crazy and had killed, and I think you would have made that same choice if you were in my shoes. But that don't make it right.

"Mal . . . I don't know if I can be a leader. Or . . . A good mother, if I can't really lead us now. I just . . . Don't know if I'm headin' us right."

She closed her eyes, and felt warmth behind them. Zoë beat that back, holding it down. She wouldn't cry in front of Mal, even in a coma.

"We need you back, sir."

He didn't answer her. Not that she expected he would.

Zoë sat in silence for a while, listening to the metronome of the beeping machinery, before stirring and rising, slow and steady and with measured certainty. She had a job to do. As long as he wasn't here, she would have to step up and take control.

She pushed the weakness away and brought her armor and self-control back up. There was work to be done.

* * *

Jayne sniffed the air, but the only thing he smelled was _cold_.

The chilly air of Glacier muted all scents, resulting in the sharp chill being the only thing that graced his nose. He scowled at that as he stepped off the Mule, and peered over the tree-lined ridge that overlooked the canyon north of the drone base they were hiding out in. There were, without exception, nothing but pine trees rising up out of the snow-covered soil; nothing else would really grow here except for moss and other tundra-grown bushes and trees, and most of those were further up north or down south, in areas where the constant snow storms couldn't bury them. The trees were not exactly thick, but nor were they sparse; they'd been planted by the terraforming drones starting a century and a half back, and the forests grew fast thanks to the large-scale carbon- and nitrogen-seeding.

Jayne's boots hit the thick snow, which rose up halfway to his knees, and he started slogging across the dozen meters to the sensor pole they'd set up on top of the ridge. Behind him, he heard Shepherd Book do the same, but the old preacher moved a bit more slowly. Jayne glanced back, and saw the old man, heavily-covered in coats and furs. The scarf over his mouth and the goggles on his eyes kept his frown from being visible. The Shepherd was stern stuff, no doubt about it, if he could come out in this mess.

Zoë had assigned Jayne to patrol work, checking the sensors they'd planted on their second day, which circled the drone base out to a few kilometers. That job mostly meant he went out every few days to check on the sensors and make sure they were working, and if they messed up, he was to bring Kaylee or Wash or both and let them fix it. It was simple work, boring, but it kept him busy.

If he weren't busy, Jayne suspected, he'd have a lot more time to think, and thinking brought him back to what happened on Sirocco Station. And thinking on that got him considering the mess of _niao shi de du gui _that had gotten them into this situation, and how much he wanted to freaking strangle the lot with red-hot chains.

He grumbled, pushing the anger out and away, and slogged through the snow, the Shepherd behind him. Book had volunteered to come out with Jayne on his patrol from time to time, probably because he was getting stir-crazy from being cooped up inside that hangar for weeks at a time. They made their way to the sensor pole, and Jayne walked around it, checking the detectors and wiring, while Book opened the casing and peered inside. It wasn't large, barely taller than Jayne, and only featured a few sensors on it.

"Looks like its working proper," Book called after a moment.

"Same," Jayne added as he finished his sweep.

"Is that the last one?" Book asked as he closed the casing, and Jayne nodded.

"Yeah," he called back, over the hissing wind. "Guess we'll head back now."

They started back toward the mule, and Jayne glanced at a few of the pine trees as they powered through the snow. His eyes tracked over the bark, and he paused. Chunks of the tree's bark had been stripped away, leaving fresh, pale wood underneath. He thought he saw tooth marks.

"Hey, preacher," Jayne said, and waved him over. Book pushed through the snow to where Jayne stood, and peered down at the markings on the tree. "You know what this is?"

"No," he said, shaking his head. "Never seen that before."

"Never gone hunting?" Jayne asked, and Book shrugged.

"Rabbits, some deer," he replied.

"This looks like elk," Jayne said, running a finger over the bark. "Chewed off some bark. Big one, from the size of it. Probably gene-modded." He took a step back, and peered around. There were some indentations in the snow nearby, and he moved toward them. They were rapidly filling with snow, but he could make them out.

"Preacher, you feeling like some real meat tonight?"

* * *

Wash didn't like the cold.

Most folks didn't, but Wash had some unpleasant associations with low temperatures, particularly with heavy snowfalls, which only partially had to with the last snowy place he'd been to. He hadn't known Tracy much at all beyond suspicions of zombie-hood, but the effect the kid's death had on the crew had been horrible to watch. Having to stand beside Zoë while snow and biting chill cut past them and they carried the boy's coffin out to his waiting family was one more dark moment he had to file away.

The pilot pushed that memory away as he worked through the snow gathering around the little trading post that sat about seventy kilometers from where _Serenity _was berthed. He didn't catch the town's name, particularly because it was in Russian, but the trading post was located on a crossroads between several settlements, making it a good place to go to pick up supplies. Wash personally had no idea why people would build homes on ball of rock this frigid and inhospitable, but it made for a good place to hide out. No one asked questions.

The trading post had a few different kinds of stores, but the one Wash had gotten most familiar with was the heavy equipment shop. It mostly sold machinery for cold weather vehicles, but Kaylee could repurpose just about anything he brought her, thanks to years of having to make do on a shoestring budget. And since this was the only place in a few hundred kilometers that carried heavy vehicle and aircraft parts, Wash made a trip up here every other week to pick up parts Kaylee needed, as well as other supplies.

The snow followed him inside as he stepped through the wooden door that had been mounted onto the plastic pre-fab structure that the shop's owner had repurposed. There was a little plastic ramp inside that channeled melted snow back outside. Electronic music played over a speaker somewhere inside the store, and it smelled of grease and metal. Most of the shop consisted of the storage area in the rear where all the parts were, while the front consisted of a counter and a half-dozen head-height shelves of minor bits of junk and parts. All of the furniture and shelves were made of a chaotic jumble of plastic and dark, rough wood.

"Morning," Wash said to the store's owner, a fellow he'd dubbed Smiles. Smiles was a dark-haired, tattooed Russian who had all the cuddliness of a nuclear explosion and the good humor of an avalanche. Smiles grunted; if he spoke any language Wash knew, he never hinted at it. He could at least read English, which was why Wash passed him a slip of paper with what he needed - a few parts for the grav-boot and a coil for the plasma impeller. Smiles glanced at it, grunted something in Russian, and went into the back of the shop to see what he could find.

Wash let the cheery fellow go about his business, and started wandering down the aisles, browsing the junk in the aisles. Smiles ran a salvaging operation on the side, where he took apart vehicles and machinery people "found" and brought to him. Most of the little bits and pieces from stuff he couldn't completely salvage ended up on the shelves. Sometimes Wash found something nifty amidst the junk.

A few minutes after he started browsing, he heard the front door open, and the faint roar of blowing winds. The store got a few degrees colder as the wind blew in, and Wash spared a glance at whoever had stepped inside.

He stopped, and did his best not to stare while doing exactly that.

There were three men entering the shop, and all of them had the hard-bitten look of men who'd been fighting wars in terrain like this all their lives. The lead man was a medium-sized, heavily-built bruiser with a line of jagged rand and white tattoos running down either cheek, long brown hair, eyes the color of flint, and a mustache so thick and wide it was visible from behind him. He strode toward the counter, and Wash could hear the _hiss_-_whirr _of cybernetics in his legs. His right arm, underneath the heavy coat he wore, was oversized, almost deformed - definitely another case of cybernetics. Beneath the coat, Wash thought he saw plated body armor, and his expression was twisted up like someone had just kicked his puppy into his sister. His comrades were similarly outfitted, and between them, Wash saw enough firepower to outfit a small revolution.

Wash's finely-tuned detective skills warned him these were not nice men.

He did his best to remain inconspicuous while the trio of gunmen stomped up to the counter, and the leader barked something in Russian. Smiles emerged a few moments later, muttering something in annoyance, and shut up the instant he saw the men in his shop. His next unintelligible grunts were more polite, if still surly, and the tattooed man thrust a piece of paper toward him. Smiles looked over it, nodded, and scurried back behind the shop.

Wash did his best impersonation of empty air while waiting. The last thing he wanted was to draw attention from these mercenaries. A minute later, Smiles returned with a bag, said something to the mercenary leader, and the man nodded. Then the salvager glanced over to Wash, waved a hand, and gestured to the bag.

_Of course, the universe has other plans than to just let me get by_, he thought with a cheerful grumpiness, and Wash walked up toward the counter, doing his damndest to be inconspicuous. He took out his wallet and began fishing out some money, while Smiles turned back toward the mercenary. The spoke for a moment, and Smiles shook his head. Then, the mercenary reached into his pocket and produced a datapad. He flicked it on and showed it to Smiles, and the salvager again shook his head, barking a distinct negative.

Wash finished fishing the money out and handed it to Smiles, who nodded, counted the money, and handed him the bag.

"So wonderful to be trusted," Wash murmured as he took the bag and stepped around the trio of bruisers.

"Hey," said the leader of the mercenaries, who reached out and tugged on the shoulder of the pilot's jacket. Wash froze, and did his best to turn naturally to the man, not displaying the anxiety running through him.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"You're not from around here," the mercenary said, in a thick Russian accent. "You're a pilot?"

"Yeah," Wash replied, hoping he could keep this conversation of the monosyllabic variety.

"You see this ship on the way in?" he asked, holding up the data pad, and Wash had to look down at it, lest he be rude to the nice gunmen.

On the screen was a firefly-class freighter, marked as _Serenity_.

His response in the next few moments could kill him. There were a very few things such heavily-armed and angry-looking men would want with their ship, and his anxiety turned into a near-full-on panic.

He couldn't hide the fact that he recognized the ship, so Wash instead thought fast.

"Yeah, I saw it leaving the planet while I was coming in," he said quickly. "They had the same berth as us at the orbital port. Gave us a lot of _luh suh _when we arrived."

The mercenary nodded.

"Where did they go?" he asked, a sudden, dangerous interest in his eyes.

"Boros, I think they said," Wash replied.

"Long way from Glacier," the mercenary said, scowling. "You are certain? You spoke with their captain?"

"I'm just a pilot," he said. "I synched with their nav computer so we wouldn't crash. I saw where they were headed. Other than that, I didn't way a word to them."

The mercenary frowned, clearly unhappy, and then muttered something in Russian, a very unpleasant-sounding phrase.

"Thank you," he said, and Wash nodded, then scurried out of the shop with his parts in tow. He had to get to the shuttle and back to Serenity, and _fast_.

* * *

They crouched at the base of a tree, quiet and motionless. The wind blew toward them, which kept their scent from being carried along to the animal. Book and Jayne had retrieved their rifles from the mule and started to follow the elk's trail. The snow had started to let up, making it easier to follow the trail of the elk's long legs through the snow, and within half an hour they'd come to a halt about two hundred meters from a thicket of trees that the trail led right toward.

Now they waited.

Book could tell Jayne was tense, and not because of the weather or where they were. He had complained that they didn't have any proper hunting equipment beyond their rifles - not even camouflage. He would have set up a blind in the tree, he'd said, but any movement now might spook the animal.

"You learned hunting from your family?" Book asked quietly, and Jayne grunted.

"My uncle," he murmured. "Andrew Cobb. Best rifleman I ever knew."

Book had to pause at those words, for Jayne's tone carried a wistfulness and regret that he'd rarely heard before. Jayne spoke rarely about the male members of his family - little of his father and nothing of his uncles. He spoke little of the rest of his family too, beyond reading letters from his mother, sisters, and brothers.

"Showed me how to hunt. Shoot, track, survive in the woods and desert and snow, all that I nee-"

He went still and silent, and Book did the same, for there was movement in the thicket ahead. The elk emerged, great horns rising up over the animal. Its eyes cut back and forth, but it did not see them - or maybe a hundred years without predators to hunt it had bred a sense of complacency into the animals. Large numbers of cloned genestock had been dropped on a number of worlds as part of the terraforming process, but most of them had been deployed without predators. There were no wolves or great cats to hunt these elk like there had been on Earth That Was - just men.

Jayne raised his rifle - not Vera, but a long-barreled hunting and sniping rifle, better suited for hunting game. The bullets from Vera, he'd said, were made for armor-piercing and shredding the insides of the target. Rounds like that would tear apart the meat they wanted.

"Ain't gonna disrespect the elk like that," Jayne had added. The bit of sentimentality surprised Book.

They slowly raised their weapons, not wanting to spook the animal. Book knew enough about hunting deer that it translated well when hunting elk.

"Head," Jayne breathed, and Book nodded. "Fire on three."

They counted down. One . . .

The elk started walking away, sniffing the air.

Two . . . .

The wind shifted at their back, blowing toward the elk, if only for a moment. The animal froze, and Book thought he saw it sniffing the air.

"Three."

It dropped immediately, before the reports from the rifles had finished echoing through the woods. Both rounds had hit it cleanly in the head. Jayne rose and began powering through the snow toward the dead animal, and Book followed after him. They reached the downed elk after a couple of minutes, and Book was impressed by the sheer size of the horned animal. Their bullets had taken it in the middle of the head, killing it instantly.

"Uncle said to aim for the heart," Jayne said, crouching over the animal. "But that might damage the meat, and won't guarantee a kill before it can run off. Head shot's harder, but I figure if you're gonna hunt, take the harder shot, understand?"

Book nodded, while Jayne walked around the body, inspecting it.

"Young bull," he said, and grinned. "Guess we got two-fifty, maybe two-seventy kilos."

"Can you carry that?" Book asked. Jayne answered his question by crouching, grunting, and heaving the dead elk onto his shoulders.

"Yeah," he said with a strained exhalation. "Yeah, I got him. Thinkin' I'm underestimatin' the weight there."

They slogged their way back to the mule, a kilometer away, with Jayne keeping a steady pace behind Book in spite of the hefty load on his back. The Shepherd did his best to break the trail for Jayne, so he wouldn't have to fight the snow as he carried the big elk back to the vehicle.

He exhaled with relief as they got back to the vehicle, and Jayne brought the elk down with weary motions. They secured the elk's body to the back of the mule, Jayne making sure that the head was wrapped up so it didn't bleed into the snow or machine. As he finished doing so, Book saw something in his eyes, and the way his hands moved. Jayne Cobb wasn't the kind or reminisce, but when he did, the distant expression was distinctive.

"Something wrong?" the Shepherd asked, and Jayne frowned, tightening the corpse to the frame of the vehicle.

"Ain't hunted elk in a long time," he said. "Just brought something back up, is all."

He turned around and started clambering up into the mule. Book began to fire up the engines, and as he did so, Jayne spoke suddenly.

"Just got me thinkin'," the mercenary said. "'bout how I got into this line of work."

"Want to talk about it?" Book asked.

"This a confession?" he asked, and then barked out a short laugh.

'That depends," Book replied, "On whether you feel the need to confess something."

"Nah, it ain't that," Jayne replied. "Just something I ain't told no one . . . 'ceptin' maybe . . . Hell, never mind."

"If it's a story and not a confession," Book said with a smile, "You can still tell it to me. I'm a person when I'm not a Shepherd."

"Ain't that," he said. "Just . . . I ain't told the whole thing to some folks."

"Well, now you've _got _to tell me," Book said, curious. "Or I'll get Kaylee to pester you into talking."

"Now that's just cruel, Preacher," Jayne muttered. "You know . . . Hell. Suppose it might be a confession anyhow."

Book was about to tell him to not feel pressured into confessing anything, but Jayne spoke up again, while reaching into the backseat. He pulled his very favorite rifle around and set the weapon in his lap.

"Long time ago," he said, "There were some men, all a'come to kill me. A British fella, a Frenchman, an American, a Syrian, a Mongol, and a Cossack."

He ran a hand down the side of Vera, and Book suddenly remembered a few months ago: the man leading those thugs chasing them on a border world, a swarthy-looking man of Mongolian descent, and Jayne Cobb, intent on killing the man for personal reasons.

And more than that, Book thought he recognized who Jayne was describing.

"You mean to say," Book said, and Jayne nodded.

"Six Rifles," he replied.

"_The _Six Rifles?" Book echoed.

"Them's the ones. And the best of 'em," Jayne said, gesturing to Vera, "carried _this_."

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**It's time we picked up on something I hinted at a long time ago, back in the Third Interlude. This "episode" will be heavily-focused on Jayne and Wash as characters, with emphasis on Jayne, considering this is _his_ story to tell.

I know it took me a long time to put this chapter out, but I was wrestling with writer's block for a really long time, and I'm still struggling with it. My apologies for the delay.

Until next chapter . . . .


	67. Chapter One: The Six

_**Chapter One: The Six**_

The wind was mournful, the usual howling gale that came down in these rugged, mountainous parts. The mule's speed meant that they missed most of that wailing wind, the air whipping past them breaking up the low cries of the landscape and the whining engine drowning out the noise. Long moments of silence allowed the faintest twinges of that hollow cry to reach the two men as Jayne steered the mule back toward the camp, many kilometers away.

"What happened?" Book asked. Jayne couldn't hear his words normally, but the earpiece sent the preacher's words to him clear as a bell.

"I must've shot someone I shouldn't have," Jayne said, shaking his head. Bits of snow were getting stuck in his beard and hat. "I'd been doin' some outlaw sort of work for a couple of years before they showed up. Got into a few fights, killed a few men. One of 'em must have been important."

"And they came after you," Book said, and Jayne nodded, his face tightening.

"Yeah," he said, words grim. "They came after us."

And so he told the story to the preacher.

* * *

_The bar was draped in a smoky haze, the kind that accumulated through a combination of moderately adequate ventilation and the myriad patronage that came with being adjacent to a spaceport. The harsh smoke of cigarettes mixed with the faintly minty, licorice, chocolate, and more exotic smells of various brands of cigars, Weaving in among the pall were more illicit scents, associated with equally illicit formulae, roots, and leaves that burned in pipes or rolls in the darker corners of the pub._

_Between that cloak of smoke and the dim lighting, it was hard to see well in the bar, and it was equally difficult to hear. There was a rumbling generator outside, the constant whine and snarl of spacecraft engines, and a twangy sort of local music (guitars, flutes, and light steel drums being dominant) which was piped in over the speakers. Poor visibility, poor acoustics, and prime location next to a spaceport on a relatively free moon that was neither held by the Independents nor the Alliance made this an ideal place for a meeting. _

_Six men sat in a booth at one corner of the bar, some drinking, one smoking, and all armed with visible weaponry - be it a sawed-off shotgun on a hip or a short, heavy tulwar sitting sheathed in the seat beside its owner. Most had visible tattoos, save the American, and most wore beards, save the Frenchman. They were chatting idly, sitting in a semicircle and leaving the far end of the booth open for the one they were meeting._

_He came in, sliding through the smoke, glancing around with the nervousness of someone who didn't regularly employ their sort. He was well-clothed, wearing fine, pressed cotton clothes that came with his job as a local politician who could skim a bit off public works projects to buy the nicer things in life, and his midsection had the accompanying weight of better-than-most living. He settled down opposite the six mercenaries, and took off his hat. _

"_Gentlemen," he said, settling into his seat as best he could when six supremely dangerous men with weapons sat across him._

"_So, what's the job?" asked the tattooed Cossack in middle of the group. Alexi Konstantin leaned forward. Technically, the Six didn't have an actual leader, but Konstantin was the unofficial head of their little band._

"_I need men killed," the client said, and Konstantin nodded._

"_As opposed to delivering birthday presents," he replied, his voice grave. The client blinked in confusion for a moment, and Konstantin grinned. A waitress came by, asking for drink orders, and the client asked for a whisky while he switched gears._

"_Ignore him," the Brit said, shrugging. "Cossack here thinks he's a comedian."_

"_I see," the client said. "I need five men dead. I can't touch them myself."_

"_Then hire some hitmen," the Brit said, frowning. The Frenchman leaned over and prodded him in the shoulder, scowling in annoyance. "Oh, right. We kill people for a living. I forget sometimes, in my old age."_

"_You guys do it for a living," said the Mongol, from the far side of the booth, and grinned. Konstantin glared at him, and then turned back to the client._

"_Why do you want them dead?" he asked. _

"_That's confidential," the client replied. The waitress came by and dropped off his drink, while the Frenchman and Brit raised their glasses asking for refills of Chianti and bourbon, respectively._

"_Ah, I see," Konstantin said, nodding. "They killed someone you care about."_

_The client blinked, and was about to speak when the American spoke up._

"_Your posture indicates anger, and some grief," he said. "Not the annoyance of theft, or the desperation associated with a desire to get back lost people or valuables. You want a hit, but you're emotional about it and not nervous, which means its not likely to be political in nature. This is likely about revenge. Either someone killed, hurt, tortured, or raped someone you care about, and you want them dead for it."_

"_Thank you, detective," Konstantin said, nodding. The client was momentarily at a loss for words. "We make it a point to know why our clients are hiring us. It can bite us in the ass if we're not aware of all the potential complications."_

"_Like that job on Boros," muttered the Brit. "I really don't like it when-"_

"_-when we have to kill the target, the client, and twenty marshals without getting paid for it, I know," Konstantin said, scowling. "You bring up the Boros job every time-"_

"_I wasn't the one who thought we should trust a cross-dressing v-" the Brit started._

_The Frenchman slapped both of them in the back of the head. They grunted and went silent._

"_Who do you want us to eliminate?" the Syrian cut in, his voice low and booming._

"_Five men who were part of a bank robbing crew," the client said._

"_Why?" the Syrian asked. The client hesitated for a few moments, picking his words carefully. The Six waited in silence for him to speak._

"_My younger brother," he said, "was part of the crew. They were robbing banks across this moon up until they were nearly caught by the law. Next thing I know, the lawmen find my brother dead, in the crew's hideout, shot in the back of the head and with all of his possessions save the clothes on his back stolen." He clenched his fists. "They didn't want to split the money with him, so they killed him. Only explanation that fits."_

_Konstantin nodded._

"_Sensible," he said. "You have identities on these men?"_

"_Yes," the client said._

"_Why have you not sent the law after them?" the Syrian asked._

"_Two were arrested before they could get offworld," the client said. "But I can't touch them because they're in jail and guarded. I don't have the connections in local law to take them out, and I think they're going to get prison instead of death sentence. The other three ran for New Canaan and I can't reach them."_

"_Simple enough," Konstantin said. "Information?"_

_The client reached into his coat pocket, and the Six bristled, purely out of reflex. People reaching into coat pockets had that effect. The client produced a sheet of light paper and handed it over, containing pictures and a ship description. Konstantin picked it up, passing it between the Six. They looked over the information, with the sheet ending at the American. He glanced over it, brow furrowing in interest._

"_Well," Konstantin said. "Standard hit fee applies. Ten thousand per, plus an additional twenty due to risk, since we're dealing with lawmen. Additional twenty due to traveling off-planet for the job. Total ninety thousand credits, half now and half upon completion."_

_The client sucked in a breath, but then slowly nodded._

"_If that's what it takes to kill them all," he said, and Konstantin smiled. He raised his glass, and the others followed suit._

"_To business, gentlemen. The Six Rifles have some men to talk to."_

* * *

"He is lying," Lazo said as they stepped outside.

A couple seconds' worth of silence followed, heavy with expectation, and the leader to the trio snorted. The hiss of his augmetics was barely audible over the wind.

"Ah, good," Konstantin said. "It is excellent that some unspecified man somewhere is not telling the truth right now. That is useful information."

There was a choking exhalation from the third man, which some might have construed for a laugh.

"Sir, one should not be a jackass," Voronin pointed out, a faint smile on his face. "It is unbecoming of our glorious leader."

"True," Konstantin said, nodding.

"The _pilot_," Lazo snarled, emphasizing the word to get his meaning across. "The pilot was lying to us. Couldn't you tell?"

"I could tell he was nervous," Konstantin replied. "Not that such a thing is particularly strange, considering the circumstances." He glanced back to Lazo, looking down at the shorter, stockier man. "We do not cut figures of peace and kindness, now do we?"

"I should follow him," Lazo continued, insistent. "If he knows something, I can get him to talk."

"And if he knows nothing, you will terrify an innocent man, spreading horrible stories about us," Konstantin replied, shaking his head. "I will not use such crude methods anyway. Use of torture is unnecessary. Uncivilized. Fear is more useful."

"Pain is frightening," Lazo suggested, and Konstantin shook his head.

"I have seen the results of torturing for information. Never effective. Never reliable." Konstantin snorted. "Besides, I do not think that pilot would fall in with such men as the ones we hunt."

"Are you absolutely certain they are still here?" asked Voronin. Konstantin shook his head.

"Intellectually? No," Konstantin said. "But instinct . . . Instinct tells me they are. And close."

"So good to know we have such trusted guidance," Lazo muttered, and Konstantin barked out a short laugh.

"Lazo, there's hope for you yet," he said, grinning. "You've already got the spark in you. We'll make you into a proper snarking bastard eventually."

"My heart is filled with longing," Lazo grunted.

A minute passed as they strode through the town toward their ship, and Lazo slowed a little. Voronin noticed and slowed with him, and Lazo shuffled a little close to the bigger mercenary.

"Hey, I got a question," he said, and Voronin nodded. "You've been with Konstantin a long time. What's the boss' grudge here?"

"He wants a man dead," Voronin said with a shrug. "We're getting paid to help him take him and his crew down."

"I know that," Lazo said. "But who is this guy? I mean, what did he do piss the boss off?"

"Hm," Voronin said, frowning. He spoke a couple of seconds later. "How much do you know about Konstantin?" he asked.

"Not much," Lazo replied. "Looks scary, but he's a nice guy underneath, for a mercenary and a killer. Other than that, I don't know much about him."

"He used to run a group of mercenaries," Voronin said. "Small team. Elite. Did difficult jobs, jobs requiring delicacy and precision."

'We were killers," Konstantin spoke up, and the other two men looked up. The boss turned, his tattoos twisting with the grimace on his face. "We were assassins. Hitmen. Infiltrators and saboteurs. The best at a very ugly business." His grimace faded. "Six men, from all over the 'Verse."

"Six," Lazo said, his eyes widening. "You don't mean _the _Six?"

Konstantin grinned.

"They called me the Cossack, back then. Some of them, anyway."

* * *

Wash hurried back to the shuttle's landing pad as swiftly as he could without looking like he was fleeing for his life. Fear and worry lent him extra speed, at the expense of, well, not looking like he was afraid. Under stress he usually worked well; he'd alternate between bouts of controlled near-panic and glacial calm as long as he knew what needed to be done, whether it involved gunfights, bare-hand brawls, or deadly-precise piloting. Granted, he wasn't always effective, but at least he kept his head, if barely.

Wash reached the shuttle and hurried inside, dropping the bag of parts and sealing the door behind him. He ran the pre-flight checklist, the usual round of system checks calming his nerves a little bit so he could think.

He couldn't risk firing up the radio this close to the town. If those mercenaries were even vaguely suspicious, they'd be listening into the radio bands, and the shuttle had only basic civilian encryption. The canyons further out near the airbase would break up his radio waves and make it harder to listen in, especially if he used low-power transmission.

Wash exhaled, nodding, and felt the anxiety flow out of him. He had a plan now. He knew what to do. The checklist ended, and he fired up the engines. A few seconds later, the shuttle was airborne and heading toward their little hideaway. As the shuttle lifted, he checked the sensors, noting the ships and light aircraft parked around the landing area for the town. None of them had giant, city-destroying weaponry, spiked, evil-looking armor, strung-up skeletons, or glowing signs that said "Mercenaries Who Are After _Serenity _Live Here" over them.

That seemed moderately unfair, he mused. The black hats should be wearing them, damn it.

Instead, he pored over the sensor data coming back from the few ships and aircraft, comparing them to what he knew. Two of the craft had unusual sensor returns. One seemed perfectly normal, except that there were faint distortions around the cargo section of the ship. It would take a fine eye, a carefully-calibrated computer, or an artificial intelligence to pick out, but Wash saw it. Unfortunately, he recognized it as simply being the distortion generated around a sensor baffler typically used by smugglers to hide hidden compartments from Alliance scanners. Suspicious, but his gut told him that these guys were not small-time smugglers.

The second ship that was returning strangely was a medium-weight transport, not dissimilar in size to Serenity, though it was more of a scarab-shaped vessel, almost like a larger, sleeker version of one of their shuttles. There were three areas that were returning distortion: two on the topside hull, on opposite sides of the ship, and one directly under the chin, beneath the cockpit. Unlike the smuggler's ship, however, the vaguely distorted sections were solid segments of hull.

That meant concealed weapons' hardpoints.

"Gotcha," he said.

Wash marked that ship. It was the mercs' vessel, without a doubt.

Next thing he had to worry about was warning the others. Zoë, being the frighteningly-competent warrior women he had married, had decided to set up a small radio receiver outside their hideout, so that even with low-powered transmissions anyone outside on errands could call in. Just in case.

Wash dialed back the power of the shuttle's transmitter to almost useless levels, and maneuvered the craft toward the canyons they were sheltering in. He flew low to the ground and dipping into a cleft in the earth gouged out by pre-terrafromed water flows, and once convinced he was safe, the pilot activated his transmitter.

"Zoë? You picking up?" he called. Silence came back for a couple of seconds. "Zoë, pick up, kinda-sorta urgent." Silence. He checked the power settings, and ran some quick math, which added up. _Serenity _was picking up, or should have been. Maybe Zoë wasn't in the cockpit, which meant that, as usual, right when they needed to urgently communicate the universe conspired against them. He switched channels, going to personal communicators.

"Hey, Jayne? Book? You guys reading?"

"Yeah," Jayne called back, his voice a bit annoyed. "We're here. Something happenin'?"

"Angry-looking cyborg Russian mercenaries with enough guns to arm Athens asking about _Serenity_," Wash replied. "You know, the usual."

Long silence followed.

"Hello?" Wash asked, uncertain.

* * *

_The man thrashed his legs weakly, fingers scrabbling the cord around his throat. His boots thumped against the wooden floor of the jail cell, and he tried gasping for whatever weak breaths of air he could manage. Behind him, sitting on the cell's bench and holding the cord tight, stood the Mongol, his eyes half closed behind his gas mask._

_He tightened the grip on the criminal's throat for a moment, and he started shaking and fighting more furiously, before he released the grip just enough to let him take in some more air. The prisoner continued to struggle, but the Mongol's grip was tight and inexorable._

_It helped that he'd broken the prisoner's legs when he'd first entered the cell, before he began the strangulation process._

_There were footsteps in the hallway outside, and one of the Six stepped into sight. Like the Mongol, he wore a full-body suit and mask, designed to prevent anyone from seeing their features and to keep the knock-out gas they'd released into the outer offices of the station from affecting them. The Mongol glanced up at him and grinned behind the rebreather he was wearing, nodding._

"_The fuck are you doing?" the man demanded, and his voice and accent painted him as the American. Of course, the heavy rifle on his back would also paint him as such as well._

"_The other one's dead, isn't he?" the Mongol asked, tightening his grip a moment._

"_Yeah," the other mercenary replied. "It's been three minutes. What the fuck are you doing?"_

"_Experimentation," the Mongol replied. "I want to see how long I can keep him conscious, in spite of the pain."_

"_We're not here to play your sick games," the American said, hand on his pistol. "Put him out of his misery so we can get out of here."_

"_I think," the Mongol said, tightening his grip again, "that we can afford another minute of indulgence." The prisoner's face went blue._

"_Finish him, already," the American demanded, and drew his pistol. "Or I'll do it."_

_The Mongol glanced up at him, eyes still half-closed, and shrugged._

"_What's going on?" Konstantin's voice drifted down the hall, and he stomped down the jail corridor. He came to an abrupt halt at the cell, and saw what the Mongol was doing. Without a word, he drew his sidearm and shot the prisoner twice, the report of his silenced pistol sharp and quiet._

_The Mongol jerked in surprise, eyes widening, and he jumped up, releasing he rapidly dying man._

"_Hey, you could have hit me!" he protested._

"_I didn't," Konstantin replied, eyes hard as flint. "I let you join because you promised you could keep your impulses under control. Remember that."_

_The Mongol muttered something under his breath as he retrieved his garrote, and the trio started up the hallway of the local police station. As they moved up the corridor, the Syrian emerged into the hallway, pistol in hand. Konstantin shook his head, and the medic nodded._

"_How are the deputies?" the Cossack asked._

"_Alive, unconscious, masked, and bound," the Syrian replied. "The others are hauling them outside."_

"_Good," Konstantin said, nodding briskly. "Get the bleach set up." Despite the suits and masks, there was still a chance they'd leave some DNA behind for sniffers to pick out. Better to be safe than sorry._

_A few minutes later, the six men moved through the station, spreading bleach over every surface they'd gotten near. The small police station stank of the disinfectant, but it did its job. They reserved an extra amount for the cell of the prisoner that the Mongol had taken his liberties with. Once that was done, the Frenchman took multiple captures of each corpse, both from a distance and close up. Always good to have verification._

"_Anything on the scanner?" Konstantin asked as they finished up. The Brit, who'd been monitoring the police bands while they'd worked, shook his head._

"_We're good," he replied. "Might as well be ghosts."_

"_Should split up anyway," the Cossack said, and they nodded. "Ditch the suits and masks, meet up at the rendezvous in two hours, then we'll head for the ship. I want to be in the Black by sun-up."_

_They did exactly that. One hour and forty-eight minutes later, Konstantin pulled up to the rendezvous point, a small pub near the spaceport where the _Gorram Gun_, their ship of ill renown and unpleasant repute, was docked._

_The American had beaten him there, and appeared to have done so by quite a bit, considering the trio of mugs in front of him in their booth._

"_Hey," Konstantin said as he slid into the seat opposite his friend. "You're early."_

"_Not early enough," the American said, his voice utterly sober. He knocked back the fourth mug in a single shot and set it aside. "Still not drunk." Konstantin scowled at the empty mugs, and the waitress brought another. He ordered a glass of bourbon himself._

"_What's wrong, Andy?" Konstantin asked, and the American blinked. They didn't use their proper names often. In fact, none of them knew the Mongol's actual name. But Konstantin and Andy had been the first two of the Six, and they'd been friends for a while now. Even so, he didn't know his friend's full name; the only one of the Six whose full name he knew was the Frenchman's._

"_I hate these jobs," he said, shaking his head. He knocked out half of the next beer in a single draw. "This isn't even assassination, Alexi. Just . . . Murder."_

"_We're mercenaries," Konstantin replied. "It's what we do."_

"_I can handle a stand-up fight," the American said, shaking his head. "I can stomach assassination. But this is just . . . Murder, man. Hunting men down and killing them like animals. Never sat well with me. And one of these guys we're here to kill is a damn kid. Not a year past his teens."_

"_He's a robber and a pirate, too," Konstantin said. "Do the 'Verse good to rid the world of men like this."_

_The American didn't reply, instead finishing off his beer. Konstantin considered the weirdness of his old friend of late. He didn't think the man was getting flakey, but if he was, it might be time for the man to retire. That was half the problem with the mercenary business. If you weren't retired by bullets, eventually you'd retire from weariness. _

_The waitress came by again, dropping off Konstantin's bourbon and Andy's sixth beer._

"_Mongol's going nuts," Andy said, knocking back a mouthful. Konstantin grunted, sipping his drink._

"_I have him under control," he replied. "Besides, we need him. Best damn electronics man I've seen."_

"_He's a fucking psycho," the American replied, gulping down beer. Konstantin knew the man could put back alcohol like nothing else. He wondered where he'd gotten that attribute from. "One of these days, someone's going to have to put a bullet in that lunatic's brainpan."_

"_Not today," Konstantin said, sipping his drink._

"_Whatever," the American said. He glanced up as the door to the pub opened, and the Brit strode in, followed by the Frenchman, both were grinning, and the Brit was chatting amiably while the Frenchman nodded along. Within a few minutes, the Syrian arrived, and the Mongol brought up the rear._

_Twenty minutes and a round of drinks later, they were on the Gorram Gun, and ten minutes later, they were in the Black._

* * *

Jayne had finished telling the tale to the Shepherd. It hadn't taken long; he'd recounted things in short, economic sentences. The robbery. The murder. The Six, and how things had progressed. And then, right as he got to the end, Wash barged into his ear.

And the little man gave him the most disturbingly ill-timed news ever.

"Hello?" Wash was calling. There was a bit of feedback from his words, but nothing disruptive. "Jayne, Book, you there?"

"_Ta mah de_," Jayne finally said, shaking his head at the horrible coincidence. "Speak of the damned devil. Son of a bitch, they're here."

"Wash," Book said, his voice calm and controlled. "Describe them."

"Ah, angry-looking guy with an arm and a leg missing, replaced by bionics," Wash replied. "Had slash tattoos across his face. Two other guys with him, looked like professional mercenaries. Lead guy spoke Russian, and was asking about _Serenity_. Looked pretty intent too, when he talked to me."

"Konstantin," Jayne bit out.

"He spoke to you?" Book asked, surprised.

"Yea verily," Wash replied. A burst of static washed over his words. "I doth need to change mine pants."

"You see anyone else with him?" Jayne asked.

"Nope," Wash said. "But I got a profile on his ship before I lifted."

"Better'n nothing," Jayne said, and he frowned, thinking. He tried to remember specifics about before, and as he did, a cold chill settled into his gut. "Wash, they say what they were after?"

"No," Wash replied, shaking his head.

"Likely the bounty Niska has on us," Book surmised.

"Likely," Jayne agreed, but he also knew Konstantin, from both personal encounter and reputation - and the last survivor of the Six Rifles was legendary for his grudges. It wasn't impossible that the Cossack had come this far and put together another group of mercenaries just to take a straight shot at Jayne.

After all, Jayne had, directly or indirectly, killed every one of his friends and colleagues. It didn't matter that they'd been trying to kill him dead.

"Jayne, you still there?" Wash called, static distorting his words faintly.

"Yeah, I'm-" Jayne started to snap back, but then paused.

"Jayne?" Wash asked again. Static popped the line some more. "Are we communicating in half-sentences now? You want me to finish your lines for you?"

"Wash, check your radio," Jayne said, more cold settling into his gut, at odds with the chill wind against his face. "You got some interference."

"Transmitter feedback," Book said, his voice low.

"Uh, let me see," Wash said. "Yeah, I'm getting feedback, like-" He paused. "Motherless son of a bitch. Like another transmitter is . . . ."

"Attached to the shuttle," Book whispered.

* * *

_The _Gorram Gun _passed over the settlement of Fallbright about three kilometers up, and angled for the spaceport a few kilometers out from the town. Konstantin peered over it as they passed, frowning. The source indicated that their targets were in the town, but he didn't like the terrain. It was mostly mountainous, but blanketed with "century" pine forests - the rapid-growing, genetically-engineered pine forests that had been laid down when the terraformers went through._

_The settlement itself was about a thousand folks strong, mostly farmers with some local commercial shipping. A wide lake had formed near the town, and a river ran down the mountain toward a reservoir that had been formed a couple of years ago by a small, newly-built dam. The ground was a mixture of red and black soil, altered by therefore microbes and nanotech to make soil suitable for Earth life to grow._

"_If these guys get outside the town," muttered the Brit, "They'll be impossible to track in those forests. Bloody new-growth is always a pain in the arse to track."_

"_No law," the Mongol replied. "Better that way."_

"_There's law," Konstantin replied, shaking his head. "Just local marshals, but those can be the most dangerous. Border world like this, have to be tough and resourceful."_

"_Let's just put down and get this over with," the American said, scowling. "This job reeks."_

_The Frenchman grunted in agreement._

"_I prefer more complex ones," the Syrian murmured. "Like the Boros job. That was fun."_

"_Not for me," the Brit muttered._

"_I got to remove shrapnel from new and interesting body parts," the Syrian said, with a grin._

"_Yeah, well, I don't like shrapnel in those places," the Brit growled. "So I didn't find the Boros job very fun at all. Thank you, go fuck yourself."_

_Konstantin's eyes roved over the terrain, taking it all in while his comrades argued behind him. The dam was a kilometer south of Fallbright, built out of wood and roughly-shaped stone. It wasn't a permanent construction, but at least the locals were smart enough to realize that; no houses were built downstream of the dam. The rest of the terrain was hilly, broken-up landscape. The Brit was right; if their quarry broke out of town and fled into the woods, tracking them would be hard on foot, and the local law would be watching for any aircraft in the wake of a gunfight._

_The isolated location would make this difficult. They couldn't use the ship, because local law would mark their approach. A ship landing, a half-dozen strangers entering town, followed by a triple homicide, then lifting off shortly afterward would be _a little _suspicious._

"_Sweep's done," reported the Mongol, sitting at the sensor station. "Got a terrain map. Transferring to your 'pads."_

"_Okay," Konstantin said. He scanned the map, and saw a flat area seventeen kilometers northwest of Fallbright, within a dip between a couple of cliffs. "Go down and prep the mules. We're putting down here and going in overland."_

_Two hours later, the Six rolled into town on a pair of battered, four-wheeled trucks. Their client had given them surprisingly good information on their quarry, but even without it they would have quickly determined where their targets were residing. There were a series of low-rent flats on the east side of town, near the minimal landing pads for aircraft, and that was the only place that transients like their quarry would be using. More importantly, the landing area had the small ship that their client had confirmed was being used by their targets. And for the jackpot, the apartments were owned by the same company that owned the port._

_From there, it took only a few minutes' wrangling with the local spaceport's computer. The Mongol broke in easily enough, bypassing the security and finding which apartment their prey had rented and even what vehicle they'd rented from a local dealer. Twenty minutes later, the Brit and the American were reconnoitering the complex while the rest lingered a couple blocks over in the mules._

"_Empty," the Brit reported into his earpiece as they finished their foot sweep. "Not home."_

"_Ambush?" asked the Syrian over the radio. The Frenchman muttered a suggestion on the other end, and the Mongol snorted in amusement while he continued working on his laptop. _

"_No," Konstantin replied, shaking his head. Gustav was always the first to suggest resorting to explosives. "Too much collateral damage. There's kids living in that complex."_

"_Non-explosive ambush, then," the Syrian said. "Three men inside, three outside. Wait until they come back and wipe them out as they enter the apartment. French, Brit, and Mongol inside, Cossack and myself outside, American on overwatch and sniper in case one of them runs."_

"_I thought I was the idea guy," the Brit muttered._

"_The bad idea guy," Konstanin said with a smile. "Good plan, but we can't guarantee all three will return at the same time. If we don't have any better-"_

"_Fallbright Diner," the Mongol cut in._

"_Eh?" _

"_Fallbright Diner," he said. "Three blocks over. All three of them are there right now."_

"_How the hell-" the American started to say, but the Mongol cut him off._

"_Local law strung up a bunch of cameras on intersections to track criminal types," he said. "Broke in, checked for that truck connected to our boys. Spotted it pulling into the diner a moment ago. I have visual on all three of them going inside."_

"_Well, we know where they are, so we can track them when they leave," the Syrian said. "Set up an ambush, and then we can wait for them to return."_

"_No," Konstantin said, shaking his head. "We know where they are now. Take them out now."_

"_Agreed," the Mongol said, grinning. The Frenchman grunted an affirmative, as did the Brit. _

"_You sure about this?" asked the American, and Konstantin nodded._

"_Yes," he said._

"_Fine, then," sighed the Syrian._

* * *

Konstantin frowned as he sat in the cockpit of his ship. Behind him, a couple of his men were grudgingly handing money to Voronin, who was grinning and exultant over the wager.

"I told you the boss knows his stuff," the mercenary crowed.

"They found the bug," Lazo said, scowling. Konstantin grinned as the feed cut out. Whoever "Wash" was, he knew what he was doing, and cut off the bug with startling aclarity.

"Irrelevant now," he said. "I didn't expect that bugging every ship on the landing pad would pay off this quickly, I admit."

He leaned back, smiling.

"They're here on Glacier, and we know the rough area. Get the ship airborne, before they flee, and prep the jammers."

Konstantin rose from his chair as the ship's pilot started working on his console. The thrum of laboring engines ran through the deck, and Konstantin reveled in the sound. It meant they were finally closing in.

The bounty on _Serenity _was enough to buy a small moon, but what he really valued was confirmation that Jayne Cobb was both still alive, and on the planet.

* * *

_Fallbright Diner was the standard in these backwoods towns. Built all out of local wood and tar, with glimmering holograms and neon light and paint, trying to cover up the fact that the place was little more than a cleanly-kept shithole. The truck belonging to their quarry sat outside, with a half-dozen other vehicles ranging from ATVs to a light hovercraft. The Six parked their two mules outside, across the street, and they peered inside for several minutes, while also surveying the surrounding area. The Brit and the Frenchman circled around to the rear and came back._

"_One entrance out back, through the kitchen," the Brit reported. _

"_I see maybe ten people inside," reported the Syrian. "Including our targets. They're sitting separate from the others. No law."_

"_How are we playing this?" the American asked. The others likely didn't hear the hint of trepidation in his voice, and Konstantin glanced at him. He was sitting calm and still, but he had his hands on the case containing his rifle, and his fingers were twitching slightly on it. For a sharpshooter, that was telling._

"_Two teams, three in front, three in back," Konstantin said. "First team, myself, Syrian, Brit. We're going in front. Flashbangs in first. Syrian stays at the door, provides lookout, and is driver. Second team, the rest of you, circle around back. Intercept anyone trying to run. Mongol is driver."_

"_Understood," came the general reply from everyone, save the Frenchman. He just grunted._

"_Masks on," Konstantin said, and pulled on the balaclava. The others followed suit, while the second team drove around back._

"_Let's finish this and go home," he murmured, and opened the door, dropping out onto the pavement._

* * *

_They sat in the fourth booth on the back wall, amid a faint pall of smoky haze and listening to some local guitars being played over the tiny speakers strung around the diner. Tim was choking, having attempted to swallow some of his sandwich while Jack Rat delivered the punch line to his joke. The bearded boss of what was left of the three bank robbers was having almost as much fun watching his comrade gasp and cough up his mostly-chewed ham-and-mustard as he was from his own joke._

_Tim was the beefy one, all muscle and gristle and bone, two hundred and twenty pounds of it, with a beard to match, while Jack Rat was a tanned, slender man of thin mustache and dark, glittering, thoughtful eyes. Across from them, laughing at the joke and Tim's misfortune, was the youngest and greenest of the robbers, was a young man barely out of his teens by the name of Jayne Cobb._

_He was still possessed of the slenderness of youth, his beard growing in and his frame filling out with lean, solid muscle. He sat in a light jacket, dark trousers and a dark blue shirt proclaiming, in the convincing logic of all advertisements, that a particular brand of beer was the best in the 'Verse, accompanied by a beautiful and mostly-naked woman. A big revolver sat on his waist, and the bulge of a knife sheathed up his left wrist could barely be seen underneath his jacket._

"_You asshole," Tim said, glaring at Jack Rat as he finished swallowing his food. "You knew I was going to choke on that line."_

"_Which was why I said it," Jack replied. Jayne chuckled, and Rat nodded toward him. "See, the kid has a decent sense of humor. Why don't you?"_

_Tim coughed a couple more times and settled back into his seat. He took another bite of his sandwich._

"_So, how long we gonna stay here on this rock?" Jayne asked. "Pretty view, but I'm itching to do some more work."_

"_We left a body behind," Jack Rat said, and nodded toward Jayne. "Thanks to you, by the way. Spotting him making off with all our money." Jayne practically beamed at the praise. "But we need to lie low. Wait a few months. After all, Gains and Tubbs were pinched getting off world. We've got enough money to hide out for a bit."_

"_Besides," Time said. "Big 'Verse, and independent world on the other side of the system. No lawman will track us here."_

"_But might be bount-" Jayne started._

"_Relax," Jack Rat said. "We're safe here on New Canaan."_

_Naturally, that was when the front door opened, and three men in dark jackets, body armor, and balaclavas stormed into the room, holding submachineguns. The lead man's arm pumped, and something fist-sized and cylindrical hurtled toward the trio._

_Jayne was facing the door, and caught the movement. He reacted with almost superhuman speed; before the grenade had left the attacker's hand, his arm swung down under the table and threw it up, interposing it between the trio of thieves and the door. Ham sandwiches, beer, and paper plates went flying, and he dropped behind the table._

_The flash bang erupted, filling the diner with intense, deafening noise and the blinding light of an electrical strike repeated a hundred times over. Thanks to Jayne's almost instant response, they missed the worst of the detonation, and Jack Rat was drawing his pistol, a large semi-automatic._

_A ringing sound filled Jayne's ears as he hit the floor behind the table, dragging his revolver out. He heard a rapid assault of deep, distant booming sounds, and realized it was gunfire. Chunks of the thick wooden table erupted and flew through the air as the men entering the diner poured fire into their cover. Two more, louder booms hit Jayne from overhead, and he realized it was Tim, firing the sawn-off, drum-fed, semi-automatic shotgun hidden under his coat._

_Jayne risked a quick glance, and saw the three men at the entrance ducking and diving for cover. Jack Rat's pistol cracked nearby, and one of the trio was hit twice in the chest, but the rounds didn't penetrate the armor. Other patrons in the diner were diving for cover._

_Jayne's hearing was slow to come back, but his aim was good. He leveled his revolver and fired two shots, hitting the table one of the trio was sliding behind. He ducked back behind the table when the one still standing at the door sent a burst his way. Tim's shotgun thundered again, and the shooter at the door ducked for cover._

_A hand slapped Jayne on the shoulder, and he glanced back. Jack Rat was yelling something, inaudible over the gunfire and ringing in his ear, but he pointed at the rear door into the kitchen, and Jayne nodded. Jack wanted him to take the lead and run out the back. Jack hit Tim on the shoulder, and he nodded._

_They both rose and started firing, while Jayne pushed himself off the floor and dashed for the back door._

_Later, he would reflect on how he didn't _feel _the terror that he should have at that moment. It was there, but it wasn't particularly relevant, and it didn't stop him as he bolted for the rear door. Bullets hit the wall beside and behind him as one of the shooters took a shot at him, but he was through the door before their attackers could draw a bead on him._

_He ran into the kitchen, revolver up and searching, but aside from a pair of cowering cooks (one grabbing at a phone, hands shaking in terror) there was no one there. Jayne stepped back to the door - the gunfire was more audible as the ringing subsided._

"_Kitchen clear!" he yelled, raising his revolver and taking aim. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of the others._

_Tim was flat on his back. Three ugly red-black holes marred his face. Jack Rat stared at his corpse while crouched behind the table, shock and anger spreading over his features. He glanced up at Jayne, then reached down and grabbed Tim's shotgun with his off hand._

_Jayne understood, and leveled his revolver at one of the shooters. He put two shots downrange, one into the man's cover and the other winging him in the flank, and he ducked behind cover. Jack Rat took the instant Jayne bought to rise and started running toward his position, firing as he went. The shotgun roared in one hand, while the pistol barked in the other. His fire wasn't accurate - it couldn't hope to be accurate, he was barely aiming - but it could intimidate quite effectively. Jayne emptied the rest of his revolver's cylinders, adding to Jack's barrage of fire, and the shooter at the door had to duck into cover._

_Jack's magazines ran out two steps from the kitchen door._

_One step from the kitchen door, all three shooters emerged and put four rounds each into Jack's back and head. His momentum carried him through the door, and Jayne twisted aside lest the corpse hit him as it flew through._

_He spent half a second staring at the corpse of his boss, the back of his head opened up like a soup can that had fallen onto a circular saw. He inhaled sharply, and heard yells and pounding boots in the dining area._

_The shooters were coming after him._

_He spun and bolted out toward the backdoor, frantically reloading from the gunbelt around his waist. He didn't have any speed-loaders, so he could barely get one round in at a time._

_Jayne burst out the back door, two bullets loaded in his revolver, and leapt out into the alley. He glanced to his left - clear. He whirled to his right._

_A man wearing the same outfit as the other shooters stood not five meters away, an enormous rifle held up to his shoulder, with Jayne sitting dead in the middle of its sights._

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** This one took me too long to write. Lately I've been struggling with writer's block, on top of writing a slew of original characters. The Six were att imes difficult for me to write, up until I got a handle on each individual's particular personality. I had to rewrite this chapter a couple of times.

Any perceived similarity to _The Expendables_ is unintentional. (exception: the Brit is, in my head, voiced by Jason Statham) Any perceived similarity to _Reservoir Dogs_ is likely somewhat intentional. :P

Until next chapter . . . .


	68. Chapter Two: The Five

_**Chapter Two: The Five**_

"Shuttle was heading west, but it has changed course and begun moving north," reported Bailey, the communications specialist in the chair behind Konstantin. The cybernetic Cossack nodded, eyes glued on the sensors as the _Gorram Gun _trundled across the sky.

A blizzard was closing in, though it would be a few hours until it arrived. More than enough time to collect the bounties. Konstantin had no particular desire to endure the trials and headaches of transporting live prisoners, so he had given his men simple orders: Shoot to kill, try not to damage the heads so that they could get reliable pictures of the targets. Niska would have to be happy with corpses.

Besides, Konstantin knew Adelei Niska. He would not hand a rat over to that man alive, let alone people. Killing his targets was a mercy.

"What will we do when the blizzard arrives?" asked Brayko.

"We'll be long gone before it gets here," Konstantin assured him. He glanced to his second. "Track the pilot, and get the drones airborne. I want to triangulate his signals."

"Yes sir," replied Voronin. He rose and barked orders to a couple of the other men, who followed him out of the cockpit and down to the launch bay.

"But what if the blizzard does hit?" asked Brayko, insistent, and Konstantin smiled.

"I've dressed for the cold. Have you?"

"Better get my hazardous environment bonus," Brayko muttered, and Konstantin barked out a laugh.

"Sensor lock on the shuttle," reported Bailey.

"Follow them in," Konstantin ordered.

"The shuttle's pilot won't be heading back directly to their base," Bailey observed, and Konstantin nodded.

"Agreed," he said. "But I've read the files on this crew. They won't let us take one of theirs. Grab one, and the rest will come running." He shrugged. "Plus he might get stupid and lead us there anyway."

"Should have grabbed him at the spaceport," Brayko said, crossing his arms. "Saved us the trouble."

"Didn't know the truth at the time," Konstantin said, watching the sensors closely as the _Gorram Gun _trundled after the shuttle. "Suspicious, but . . . but we wait for confirmation on this group; I will not hurt an innocent."

"What do you call this job, then?" Brayko asked. "There are young girls in this group." Konstantin shrugged again.

"One does not earn a bounty from Adelei Niska of this size and remain innocent," he said. "Especially Cobb."

* * *

_The man had Jayne dead center in the sights of the most dangerous-looking rifle he'd ever seen._

_He pulled the trigger. Thunder filled the alley._

_Jayne jerked sideways, knowing it wouldn't matter, but desperately dodging behind a metal trash bin anyway._

_He hit the concrete, and could hear the bullet deflecting off the steel. He blinked, then shot up, revolver rising. The shooter shifted his aim as Jayne rose, then ducked and dove aside as the youth pulled the trigger. His shot went wide - he hadn't had time to aim - but it made the assassin drop and dive for cover of his own._

_A second man appeared at the far end of the alley, raising a smaller carbine, and Jayne fired his last shot at him. The bullet slammed into the wooden wall a few centimeters from his face, and he jerked back as wood splinters erupted._

_The revolver was empty, and Jayne didn't mean to stick around. He whirled and bolted toward the far end of the alley. A heartbeat later, a bullet slammed into the wall beside him, and another zipped past, but neither shot hit him. He dove around the corner and kept running, heart pounding like a machinegun and panicked breaths hammering out of his lungs._

* * *

_The American slid out cover, rifle rising to his shoulder as he crouched, and he sighted the boy fleeing around the corner of the alley. He had a split-second of precise sight alignment. One brush of the rifle's trigger would put around through the middle of his back._

_His finger hovered over the trigger, and his heart locked up in his chest. Reflex and drilled muscle memory told him to pull the trigger._

_But he held fire._

_Then the boy was gone._

_He stared down the alley, and rose to his feet. Boots pounded the pavement next to him, and the Frenchman paused next to him, his carbine shouldered. _

_The Frenchman turned to glare at him, eyes dark behind his balaclava._

"_Baise?" he hissed, and moved past the American. After a second, he followed suit, pounding down the alley. They reached the end of the alley, sweeping out into the street, but the young man was long out of sight. They heard an engine roar around the corner, and the two mules pulled down the street, coming from opposite sides. They halted next to the alley, and Konstantin leaned out._

"_What happened?" the Cossack demanded as they ran for the trucks. The Frenchman scowled and gestured toward the man following him and jumped up into the Mongol's truck. The American followed, climbing up slowly, his movements cautious and almost numb._

"_Andy?" Konstantin asked as they clambered into the truck. The Cossack held up his hand as Andy started to climb into the Mongol's truck, and the American paused. Konstantin gestured for him to get into his truck, then glanced to the Brit, who nodded, dropped down, and ran for the Mongol's vehicle._

"_I missed," the American said as he sat down beside Konstantin. _

"_What?" the Cossack said, blinking. The truck started moving, engine rumbling. In the distance they could hear police sirens. "What do you mean?"_

"_Had the kid," the American murmured, and closed his eyes. "Perfect sight alignment, and I missed him. That doesn't happen to me."_

_Silence reigned for a moment as the Syrian drove, and the Cossack stared at his friend._

"_You okay?" he asked, and the American shook his head._

"_I'm slipping," he said quietly, closing his eyes._

"_Don't flake on me now, man," the Cossack muttered. "We're in the _luh suh_, buddy. Let's take this punk out and then get out of here before we have to kill fifty marshals."_

"_Yeah," the American said, his words quiet, and he shook his shoulders. "Yeah. I'm with you."_

_Even as he said the words, the American knew his heart wasn't in them._

"_Good.," Konstantin said, nodding. "We know where he's headed. He won't get far."_

_The American closed his eyes, and said nothing._

* * *

The snow whipped past the mule as Book and Jayne careened over the rocky ridges and through the young pine forests. Jayne was making sure their weapons were ready; Vera, Book's long rifle, his own hunting rifle, and the pair of sidearms they both carried. It wasn't strictly necessary, as he'd checked them out himself before they left, but it gave him something to do, and it only made sense to have the guns out and at the ready to react if the unexpected happened.

"Jayne, Shepherd," Zoe's voice came over the radio. "How far out are you?"

"Hour, maybe two," Book replied, having to yell over the wind.

"Want me to have Wash pick you up?" she asked.

"Neg on that, Zoe," Wash's voice came over the radio. "I think I'm getting pinged. Picking up a lot of sensor waves. They're trying to track me."

"Wash, go evasive and keep away from the ship," Zoe ordered. Jayne scowled, thinking, and keyed the radio.

"Might not help," he said. "This fella has a rep for schoolin' himself. Likely he'll know us, how we operate."

"You mean he would know how we react to losing someone on the crew," Book said, and Jayne nodded.

"Yeah," he added. "He might just try to grab Wash and make the rest of us come after them."

"Hon, can you outfly them?" Zoe asked.

"Might," he replied. "In Serenity, sure, but not sure with the shuttle. Might just try to shoot me down."

There was a moment's pause, and Jayne knew Zoe was thinking furiously on her end.

"Keep evasive, try to lose them in the canyons," she said. "We'll arm up over here and try to get to you once Jayne and Book get back."

"Gotcha," Wash replied.

Jayne grit his teeth, imagining what would happen if the Cossack's men caught up with Wash. They'd shoot him down in a heartbeat if they didn't have any other use for him. And if they did . . . .

Zoe would go _nuts._

* * *

_They'd made their home on the second floor of the apartments by the spaceport. He'd cut across town as fast as he could, long legs pounding the pavement. He didn't know if he'd beat the killers back to his apartment or if they even knew it was his. If they had, maybe they would have left a spotter there._

_He slowed down as he approached the line of apartment bunkhouses, trying to steady his breathing. What if they were waiting for him?_

_Jayne stopped across the street from the bunkhouses, and peered out, hunting for a sniper or spotter. He'd been hunting since he could hold a rifle, and he understood the basics behind shooting positions and lines of fire thanks to the militia training he'd taken a few years back. Staying in the safety of the alleys outside the bunkhouses, he tried to spot shooting positions that would give the killers good lines of sight over the apartment complex._

_Maybe they didn't know. He couldn't see anyone lying in wait or in a sniper's perch, but they could just be concealed to a point where he couldn't see them._

_The bunkhouses were quiet. He could hear sirens and engines a few blocks over where the diner was, but no gunfire or anything else to indicate where the killers might be. And there were no loud engines nearby to indicate they were headed this way. Maybe they were shaking the police or had lit out of town._

Stop stallin', Jayne. The flat's got guns, ammo, and other supplies. Arm up and get to the ship and get off-planet.

_He grimaced and nodded at the internal logic, and started across the road, running fast over the pavement and onto the gravel parking lot. He didn't get shot at, which was a good sign, and he couldn't see any movement inside the bunkhouse compound. His boots pounded up the corrugated, rusty steel steps running up to the second level of the bunkhouse, and he ran to his apartment door. He reached for his keys and jammed them into the door. He pushed the door open as soon as he felt the click of the door unlocking._

_He thought he saw a flicker of light on a thin line at the bottom of the door as he opened it._

tripwire

_Jayne didn't think. His legs bypassed his brain and sent him diving sideways even as his brain was processing the tripwire's implications. In the time it took the wire to pull the pin on the mechanisms that set off charge's fuse, Jayne had managed to hurl himself out of the doorway and to the deck._

_There was a hammerblow of force, and Jayne was lifted up and spun around, flipping forward and onto his back a few meters away. Pain rolled up his back as he hit something hard and solid - the railing on the second floor walkway. He slumped against the railing, ears ringing._

* * *

"_Explosion at the apartments," the Brit reported over the radio._

_The American grumbled, while the Cossack nodded in satisfaction._

"_So it was a good idea to leave a concussion mine there," he said, and the Syrian nodded. "No explosives, and not a waste of time at all." He picked up the radio. "Get after him!"_

* * *

Up, up, get up, get _gorram _movin' now they know you're-

_Jayne was scrambling onto his feet, ears ringing and his legs wobbling and his whole body shaking from pain and exertion and sheer, unbridled panic. Those hun dans had put a damn bomb in his apartment! Who the hell were these guys?_

_He turned to look at his apartment, and saw it had been blown to hell and back. Brick and wood had been launched out into the parking lot, leaving a gaping, smoking cavern in the side of the building where his flat had been. Fires were burning inside, and nothing was recognizable. He guessed they must have been using concussion charges, as shrapnel or incendiary would have killed him outright, but also would inflicted horrible casualties on any civilians, too._

Right, Jayne. These are compassionate, considerate killers.

_Jayne shook his head, but that made the dizziness worse. He couldn't hear anything. Hell, someone could be shooting at him and he'd never be able to tell. He spun, movements a bit wild and drunken, and while he couldn't see anyone (everyone in the town was being sensible and staying indoors during gunfights and explosions like proper border folk) he knew people with guns and strong attitudes about using them would be on the way._

_He stumbled down the steps toward the parking lot, checking his revolver. He had a couple of speed loaders, and he switched one out, dumping the spent ammo on the gravel parking lot. It said something about how badly his bells had been rattled that he hadn't thought to reload on the way over. He scanned the parking lot as he reloaded, hurried for the nearest vehicle. Said transportation was a battered but functional utility truck, maybe used by local electricians. He tried the handle. It was, shockingly, locked._

"Shee-nou_," he grumbled, and smashed the window with the butt of his revolver. It took a few swings, but by then he could faintly hear the cracking glass through his enforced deafness, which was a good sign. He threw open the door and scrambled in, and drew his knife._

_His uncle had taught him a lot about survival, both in the wild and in urban environments. Hotwiring vehicles was a time-honored tradition among outlaws in general, and the truck was using the rugged, old, and cheap wiring tech from before mankind had set foot on alien soil. That made it quick and easy._

_He got the utility truck running in less than thirty seconds, and hauled the door closed behind him. Jayne threw it in reverse and swung to pull out of the parking lot. Gravel squealed and crunched under his tires, barely audible over the ringing, and he had to fight with the wheel to keep the truck moving correctly (or was that his dizziness?). Something wooden and breakable jumped out in front of him and was crushed under the truck's bumper, but he got out into the street._

_The truck shook slightly, and he glanced into the rearview mirror. The glass at the back of the truck's cab cracked, a spider web pattern suddenly appearing across the pane. Another appeared a bit to the left, and the truck shook again as something struck it._

Oh, hell, I'm getting shot at.

_Either he couldn't hear the gunshots thanks to his ringing ears, or they were using silenced weapons. Either notion sent a surge of extra panic through him, and Jayne hit the accelerator. The truck bolted ahead down the street, and he rounded the first corner he saw in an effort to dodge the incoming shots. The words of his uncle sounded in his head, competing with the ringing in his ear._

"_When being shot at, break line of fire. If they can see you, they can hit you, and if they're shooting at you, you're already at a disadvantage. Break contact, then reengage at your discretion."_

_Jayne shot down the side street, trying to remember where it went. He was headed north, and there was a drainage ditch at the north end of town maybe a couple of meters deep. There was a bridge running across it that led into the forest roads that criss-crossed the wooded areas around the town. He could lose them in there._

_The glass cracked again, and in the rearview mirror he could see the truck the shooters were driving, a smaller and lighter model than the utility rover he'd stolen. It was pulling into the street behind him, and one of the hitmen inside was leaning out the passenger window like a mook in an action vid. His weapon began flashing in controlled bursts, and the truck shook. Jayne could faintly hear the gunfire over the ringing in his ears._

_He hit the accelerator and sped away as bullets ripped past him, the relentless killers chasing him the whole way._

* * *

"Kaylee! Doc!" the external speakers suddenly blared. Zoe's voice echoed around the hangar bay.

The mechanic, elbow-deep in the exoskeleton she had dragooned Simon into helping her with, jerked her head up. Simon, standing behind her and holding up a panel so she could work, hopped back, stretching his arms to keep the panel from falling down on her head. They were both streaked with grease and oils of different sorts; Simon had put on an old long-sleeved shirt that Wash had discarded a while ago, now liberally marked with black streaks and lines.

"Uh," she said, looking up to the ship's cockpit, and thought she could see Zoe sitting behind the pilot's chair.

"Trouble!" Zoe called over the loudspeakers. "Get inside, now!"

It said something about the life they led that neither Kaylee nor Simon hesitated to spin and bolt toward the ship. Kaylee found her right hand dropping to her waist as she ran, and she realized she wasn't carrying a weapon.

"Weapon locker," Simon said, as if he'd read her thoughts, and she nodded, dredging up the code for the locker. It had become less important lately, so it took her a second to remember. They rushed up the ramp into the ship, boots pounding on the metal, and Kaylee tried to think of what could be bad enough to get Zoe that alarmed.

Life they led, nearly anything.

* * *

"Got him!" Bailey called, and Konstantin rose from his seat. He stepped behind the pilot and peered over his shoulder at the display. The marker representing the shuttle flickered in and out on the sensor return, moving through canyons and crevices. It would be hard to track the pilot until they could get close enough to position their ship directly over his, but this would do for now.

"Close in, get him under your guns," Konstantin ordered, and went back to the copilot's chair. "Comms?"

"Almost," replied Strenkov, the man operating the rear station that handled communications and engineering functions. "Give me a second . . . One moment . . . Found it!"

"Patch me in," Konstantin ordered. "Channel Two-Twelve."

"Done," Strenkov replied. Konstantin lifted the radio to his mouth and flicked it on.

"_Serenity_," he announced. "My name is Alexi Konstantin. I know you can hear me. I and my men are here to kill you."

Brayko muttered something behind him about announcing oneself to one's prey, and Kontantin smiled. He flicked the radio off and glanced back to him.

"Patience," he murmured. "I have a plan for them. Patience, my friend." There was no response on the radio, so he continued.

"_Serenity_, we are following the shuttle with your crewman on it. He is doing a good job evading through the canyons and cliffs, but we will run him down soon enough. He is . . . ." He leaned over and glanced at the displays. "Local grid 217-N-12-E-33, heading northwest at a mere one hundred and seven KPH in a standard shuttle."

He settled back, letting a smile and confidence leak into his next words.

"We will run him down," he said. "We will disable his ship, and once he has been forced to ground my men and I will kill him. He will take your crewman's picture and give it to Adelei Niska for a very nice payout. Not as good as if he was alive, but I am a man with principles."

Konstantin popped his neck, and dropped the smile.

"After we kill him, we will mark the body's location for pickup so you may bury him. I am not an ambitious man. Killing one of you is enough profit for me on this particular incursion."

He clicked the receiver off, and settled back, and waited for the inevitable response.

* * *

There was a flash of pure, overwhelming _red _that shot through Zoe's mind, accompanied by a faceless Russian, flamethrowers, and circular saws.

She shook her head and froze that line of thought as quickly as it came. Couldn't afford to let emotions seep in, though in this case it seemed more like the emotions were flooding, accompanied by a hurricane.

The _hun dan _threatened her _husband._

"Wash you heard that?" she said, keying the radio. Her voice came out tighter than it should have. Her knuckles were pale where she gripped the receiver, and she had to force herself to unclench them. In the wake of the instant storm of fury, a hard, heavy apprehension hung in her chest, joined by giddy fear for her husband's safety. She pushed it down and back with the same iron discipline that had let her calmly put a bullet through a nine-year-old girl a month and a half ago.

"Did, wish I hadn't," he replied, his voice tight and quiet. "I'm speeding up and trying to shake 'em, but its not working too well. They're pinging the canyons hard."

"Can you go to ground?" she asked.

"Maybe," Wash replied. "I'm looking for a cave, just like on Aberdeen, but groundscan radar's not turning anything up."

He didn't add that if he found a hideyhole, so could they, and that if they caught him in a cavern he would be all but dead then and there. They both knew that, and neither wanted to bring light to that notion.

Zoe could hear boots hurrying up the passage behind her, and glanced over her shoulder. Kaylee was pounding up the steps to the bridge, Simon and Inara trailing her. The former two had pistols belted around their waists.

"What's goin' on?" Kaylee said as they entered the bridge.

"The usual," Zoe said quickly, hands flowing over the ship's controls as she readied it for takeoff. "Someone with ill intent and heavy weaponry tracked us down. Wants to kill us or sell us to them that would do the same after a while."

"So," Simon said, his voice flat and deadpan. "our monthly dose of horrific terror and violence."

"It certainly seems that way," Inara said, sliding into the copilot's seat. "Are the others-"

"Jayne and Book are on the way," Zoe said. "The enemy is tracking Wash's shuttle."

"If Wash can get back to us," Kaylee said, "we can lose 'em in the orbital traffic. Fly up there and cut engines, get lost in the signal trails."

"That's what I'm thinking," Zoe said, her tone grim. "But Wash has to get away from them first. And if we take off, they'll shoot us out of the sky."

She looked around at them, and saw the worry and anxiety on their faces. They should be used to these situations by now, but it never got easier, especially when loved ones were out there at risk and you couldn't do anything to help them.

"Maybe not," Simon suddenly said, his words slow and thoughtful. "Can you track their ship?" he asked, and Zoe nodded. His eyes flicking between the three women, and then he said the dread words that brought the downfall of many other men.

"I've got an idea."

* * *

_The truck kept rattling as bullets slammed into it. The shooter was aiming for the cab, trying to hit Jayne, but even a skilled marksman would have trouble hitting a moving target while both were roaring along an uneven, barely paved road. Not that that made the notion any scarier, and Jayne's heart was trying to punch its way up out of his throat and make a break for it on its own. _

_There was another intersection up ahead, and a vehicle rumbled around the corner, a rover painted in the colors of the local police. It sped toward them and sweved, placing its bulk across the length of the street. A burst of exultation shot through him, which tempered itself almost immediately. He never thought he'd be happy to see the law, but I knew that the killers outgunned him, and the police were more likely to hinder him than help him. Border world lawmen oftentimes just shot everyone involved and asked questions while standing over the bodies; it was usually safer that way when dealing with outlaws shooting at outlaws._

_His eyes flicked across to the sides of the street as he saw the two lawmen inside clamber out, rifles in hand. To the right he saw a wooden fence that blocked off what looked like an empty lot. It was just flatboards, backed by other flatboards, waterlogged and a bit rotted and gray. Good enough._

_Jayne swerved sideways and accelerated. He hit the wooden fence at nearly full speed, and the fence practically shattered under the impact. Wood went flying as the truck shuddered and jumped a bit, rolling across the dirt lot, and he swerved swiftly when he saw the unfilled trenches of an early foundation that was being dug out. The truck whirled, and he accelerated north again, toward the road north of the lot that had intersected with the one he'd just been on._

_He heard gunfire behind him, as someone opened fire on someone else, and Jayne grinned. His wheels rumbled and the truck bounced as it drove off the lot, and he started to turn right, trying to think of which direction to go, as he knew the shooters had to have more than one vehicle-_

_A sudden shuddering roar sounded behind him, and his chest went cold. He glanced into the rearview mirror, and saw the police rover suddenly tumble into view, orange flames licking one side of it. An instant later, the killers' truck rolled around the corner, the driver pulling a stubby, wide-barreled weapon back inside._

_Son of bitch, they had a _gorram _grenade launcher._

_Then a second truck came crashing through a wooden fence directly ahead, with masked men inside._

_Jayne screamed, part out of terror and part out of sheer frustration, and jammed on the accelerator._

* * *

"_Who the hell gave the Mongol a bloody grenade launcher?" the Brit shouted as they swerved around the remains of the local police vehicle. The Mongol let out a cackle as he tossed the now-empty breech-loading launcher into the backseat. Their truck careened around the corner, and they caught a glimpse of the utility rover that the boy had stolen, as well as the other truck carrying the rest of the Six as it crashed through another fence. _

_The other truck nearly hit the kid's vehicle, but he sped up, either out of aclarity or simple panic. The Cossack's truck managed to clip the rear bumper as the youth sped past, and it started to fishtail for a few moments before straightening out._

_By that time the Mongol had juked his truck around the Cossack's, and was back on the boy's tail. The Brit leaned out the window again and took aim, right as the boy swerved around the corner. The Brit muttered under his breath as they turned after him, and then again, much louder, once he saw the north side of town and the wooden bridge running over the deep ditch that separated the town from the wooded hills and mountains beyond._

"_He's doing a runner for the woods," the Brit warned over the radio._

"_Take the bastard out fast," the Cossack responded. "Don't lose him again!" The Brit grumbled a response as he shouldered his weapon, taking careful aim at the vehicle about sixty meters ahead. He could see the Cossack's vehicle rolling in behind them, fifteen meters back._

" _. . . . know what I'm doing . . . " He squeezed off two quick shots. " . . . a bloody incompetent like the Mongol . . . ." Another shot, then a double tap, cracking the rear glass again. " . . . sticking it inside your crater and lighting it . . . ." Three round burst, deflecting off the rear bed of the mule. " . . . with blue elephants and a candy cane, you bastard . . . ."_

_He kept grumbling as they raced across the bridge, rifle kicking against his shoulder._

* * *

_Jayne rumbled across the bridge, both mules less than fifty meters behind. Bullets kept hammering the metal and cracked glass, and some distant part of his mind noted how rapidly comfortable he was getting with the notion of high-speed metal flying toward him with intent to kill._

_That realization caused the youth to jam down on the accelerator, and he jumped ahead off the bridge and onto the dirt road. The hitmen kept following him, their smaller vehicles gaining by inches. Dust and dirt went flying in a cloud behind him, but if it bothered Jayne's pursuers, they gave no indication._

_The century forest rose up around them as they drove north, beyond the edge of Fallbright. Jayne's truck rattled and jumped as it roared up the dirt road, and he could hear bullets skipping off the mule's body every few moments. His eyes flicked around as he tried to search for a way out or another option. He might be able to lose them on the backwoods trails, but he didn't know where they were. There were a lot of small roads for mining vehicles up and down the mountains and hills, but he had to-_

_A round smashed through the glass behind him and scratched past Jayne's ear, leaving a line of hot pain across the side of his head._

"_Jesus!" he shouted, jerking, and the windshield cracked then began to fall apart as another burst lanced through the glass, which had apparently taken too much abuse. Chunks of glass began to fly back into the driver's compartment, and Jayne ducked a bit as one flew too close. Hot blood welled up and ran down the side of his face. He could see a ravine to his left, through the trees. It was deep but had a fairly shallow incline. Maybe he could knock the pursuers into the ravine?_

_He heard a roaring sound behind him, and in the rear-view mirror one of the trucks was getting closer - less than twenty meters away now. He felt his heart tighten and jammed on the accelerator, right before the truck jerked and he heard a quiet explosion behind him. The mule jumped and jerked, and a sinking realization hit Jayne, the bottom dropping out of his stomach._

_They'd shot out one of his back tires._

_The truck roared up behind, closing in, with the shooter firing faster as he sensed the approaching kill. Jayne kept jamming the accelerator, and looked back at the shooter's vehicle as he drew closer and closer._

_A desperate idea then hit Jayne, the kind of idea only desperate men or crazy youths convinced of their invincibility would try. Jayne was both._

_He swerved around in front of the pursuer, and before he could think on how bad the idea was, Jayne jammed the brakes._

* * *

"_Oh-" the Mongol started._

"_-bloody-" the Brit managed._

_The Frenchman's curse was cut short as they slammed into the back of the kid's truck. The Brit, hanging halfway out of the window on the passenger side, went hurtling forward and slammed his chest into the doorframe. He bounced back, the wind blasted out of his lungs, and his rifle tumbled from suddenly-numb fingers. The horn blared briefly as the Mongol hit the steering wheel and bounced off, and the Brit could hear tires scraping on dirt behind him as the Cossack's truck squealed to a halt. Gunfire sounded somewhere behind and to his right. Pain rolled through his chest, but it wasn't serious; they hadn't hit hard enough to break anything, just enough to bruise and rattle them._

_He looked up in time to see the battered utility mule that they'd just crashed into start forward. He glanced to the Mongol while trying to get air back into his lungs, and saw the man was shaking his head and fumbling with the wheel. There was movement in the back of the truck, and the Brit glanced that way to see the Frenchman, face grim and determined, lean out the window on his side, and snap the barrel of the grenade launcher closed._

* * *

_Jayne was laughing in a mixture of terror and exhilaration as he screamed away as fast as he could, the mule bouncing on its lamed tire. The second enemy truck was angling around it on the narrow road, but it wouldn't catch up for precious moments. He had a moment to think and consider._

_Then the grenade hit._

_There was chaos and noise and force, the truck jerking sideways, and Jayne howled in sudden terror - a common occurrence of late. He fought to regain control, dirt flying as the truck's back end swung around. More bullets slammed into the metal as Jayne screamed, heart jerking and pounding in his chest._

_Then the second truck rammed him from behind. The truck started to spin out, careening toward the edge of the dirt path. He caught a glimpse of the side of the road, and of the vegetation-choked slope, and had enough time to let out a shocked curse before he went off._

_A horrible sense of vertigo struck him as the truck flew down the slope, Jayne jamming the brakes and trying to keep the truck from flipping. Underbrush crashed and crunched beneath tons of metal and rubber, small bushes flattened and larger ones buffeting the vehicle, bouncing him in his seat. A brown pillar suddenly loomed up, and Jayne swerved the truck sideways._

_A thunderous impact shocked its way through Jayne's bones, and the truck spun around, wrenching him around in his seat. The bed of the truck had slammed into the tree trunk, hitting hard enough to knock the tree partially over and send the truck into a near-tumble. He twisted the wheel, jamming the brakes again and trying to regain control before-_

_Another tree loomed out of the brush, and he couldn't dodge it._

* * *

Jayne clenched his teeth as he listened to the Cossack lay out his plans. He looked around, noting the pine trees growing thicker and taller around here. The century growth was thick and vibrant, not like the scattered copses they'd been hunting through earlier. He knew why the Cossack had said those words, and knew Zoe would be fighting her urges to go straight for the bastard's throat. He was in control of the situation, forcing them to react and respond. They couldn't let him force them to respond.

The mercenary inhaled sharply, and felt a heavy weight of certainty settle into him. He knew what he could do, and a big, mean, nasty part of Jayne Cobb told him to not do it, that it would be dumb of him to risk himself to save the pilot and the others. Instinctive selfishness warned him that it would be easier and safer to get back to the ship, arm up, and go after them or run away and leave Wash behind.

He pushed that part of himself back down. The last year had taught him how. Jayne closed his eyes, inhaled, exhaled, and made the choice.

He twisted in his chair and began grabbing weapons. Vera went into the chest holster he carried; the rifle was compact enough to fit there. He made sure his sidearm was affixed, and his knives were sheathed, and he had a couple of grenades he made sure to carry everywhere. The Shepherd instantly noticed he was loading up.

"What are you doing?" Book asked as Jayne grabbed the spare radio.

"They're on Wash," Jayne said, not stopping as he snatched up ammo. "Stop the mule."

"What?" Book asked, and behind the old man's snow goggles, Jayne saw his eyes widen in alarm, and a heartbeat later, understanding.

"Stop the mule, preacher," Jayne said again, he words quieter but rock hard. Book nodded, his mouth set in a solemn line. The mule slowed to a halt, and Jayne rose.

"God be with you," Book said, and Jayne paused. He grunted and nodded.

"Wouldn't be adverse to havin' the Lord on my side out here," he said, hopping down. "Speak to him for me, would you? Then get back to Serenity. Get 'em movin'."

"We'll be back for you," Book assured him, and Jayne nodded.

"Don't take too long," he said, and started off toward the trees, snow flying and crunching as he trudged along. Behind him, the mule's engines started up, almost hesitantly, and the Shepherd took off, leaving Jayne alone amidst the snow and trees and frigid chill.

He ran underneath the boughs of the pine trees, stepping gingerly lest he catch a root or hollow hidden by the white powder, and then keyed his radio. He dialed in the channel the mercs were using.

"Hey, Cossack," he yelled. A few moments of silence passed. "Hey, you _hun dan_, I know you can hear me. You cow-humping, vodka-swilling, son-of-a-ugly-bear-bitch, I know you're on this channel. This is Jayne Cobb." He paused. "You know, the man who killed all your buddies."

"Cobb," snarled a heavily-accented Russian voice. "This is Alexi Konstantin. You and all your crew are dead men." He went silent after that, but Jayne knew he was still listening. After a couple of seconds' silence, he spoke up.

"Well, I gotta hand it to you," Jayne said. "You just promised you'd kill the little man and leave. Guess that makes you a red-handed liar, huh? Must have cost and arm and a leg to track us all the way out here. Bet you're just hoppin' to come and get us."

A moment of enraged silence followed, and Jayne let himself grin.

"You are a dead man!" Konstantin suddenly shouted over the radio, so loudly that there was a bit of feedback. "I will kill you myself, Cobb! I will cut off your head and show it to Niska and demand extra for the service of ridding your shit-covered corpse from the 'Verse!"

Jayne couldn't help it. At the sound of that hideous, biting fury in the Cossack's voice, he burst out laughing.

"Yeah, you couldn't take me out when I was a kid, with five other badasses backin' you up," Jayne said. "You're a few hands short this time, Cossack."

He heard a snarl of incoherent rage on the other end.

"Look, Konstance," Jayne said, continuing the ruthless taunting. "I know why you got a hand in this. You're not out here for Serenity and my crew. You're out here because I threw your little moon-brained attack dog off a cliff, right? You heard he got his head dashed on a boulder and knew who it was done taken him out. That's all you care about, isn't it? Four dead men in that backwater forest. Just a _gorram_ pup took down your whole team of cuddly killers." He paused. "Gotta smart, huh?"

Silence. Angry, fuming silence. By now Konstantine's boys would have drones or tracking gear zeroing his radio transmissions.

"Let's settle this, you and me and all your little soldier boys, Konstance," Jayne said. "And hey. I got Andy's old gun too. It'll be a reunion!"

Jayne keyed the radio to continue transmitting and threw it away. It would transmit white noise that Konstantin and his cronies could zero in on. He didn't know how long it would take them to home in on him. He drew Vera from his chest strap.

"Come and get me, you son of a bitch," Jayne whispered, and started off into the trees.

* * *

_The door, hanging halfway off its hinges, tumbled free at his kick, and Jayne tumbled out after it. He flopped into the muddy stream at the base of the gully, the cold smacking him in the face and offering a counterpoint to the pain shooting through him. He rose, dizzy and nauseous, and scrabbled for his revolver. He frantically reloaded once he found it._

_Somewhere up above, he heard engines._

_Jayne spun, pushing the pain and disorientation aside, and splashed out of the stream and back onto dry land. The opposite bank was lower and a lot less steep than the side he'd just crashed down, and littered with rocks and boulders. The stream itself wove among other boulders and smaller rocks, likely from a rockslide during the terraforming process. There was little undergrowth, which was good._

_He jumped up onto the first boulder he could reach and started loping away from the wreck, using the rocks to try to cover his tracks._

* * *

Silence filled the cockpit, save for the humming and beeping of the consoles, and the creaking of plastic being squeezed by the metal hand of Konstantin. He leaned over the console, jaw clenched, the radio microphone gripped tightly. He trembled, very slightly, and his face was flushed red. The rage twisting his features distorted the tattoos on his face.

The rest of the men in the cockpit stood still, save the pilot, who was trying to keep the ship moving as quietly as possible. The men watched their leader as he slowly lowered the slightly deformed microphone, and straightened, fingers (mechanical and organic) unclenching. They watched him with the same wariness of men around poisonous adders; the unexpected shift from calm, collected amusement to white-hot rage had startled them all as he'd railed against Cobb.

He muttered something under his breath.

"Sir?" ventured Brayko.

"Find him," Konstantin whispered, his words tight and controlled. He looked up to the pilot. "Have the drones lock on the shuttle and track it. We can kill their pilot later. Find Cobb's radio and get us there."

"Yes sir," Bailey murmured.

Konstantin rose, regaining his composure slowly, shaking his shoulders, and nodded toward Brayko.

"You, Rezzin, come with me. We will get Voronin and Cantrella. Once we find him, you will help me kill him and collect his head."

* * *

_They climbed down to the bottom of the gully, the undergrowth littered with crushed bushes and smashed wood. The truck that the youth had been driving lay on its side, riddled with holes. There was a stench in the air from the ruptured fuel lines, and fuel and oil were leaking out over the fresh green grass and into the stream._

_What was lacking was a corpse._

"_Bit of blood here," called the Brit, and the Six moved around the crashed vehicle. The American scowled at that, and did his best to hide the little thrill running through him that the boy had survived. They gathered around the Brit as he crouched, checking the mud around the crash._

"_Tracks are smudged, but he headed southwest. Toward the dam," he said, pointing across the stream toward the boulders. The Cossack grunted and took out his datapad. He flicked through it, his scowl deepening._

"_Lots of mining setups along the hills between here and the dam," he said. "He could try running into one of those."_

"_If he's got a decent head," the American pointed out, "then he'll know he doesn't have any idea where they lead."_

"_Might try to get back to town," said the Syrian. "He'll be looking for his ship."_

"_If he is, he's going back toward the law," the Mongol noted. "They'd catch him, and he'd know it. He won't go back to town until he's shaken us at the very least." He turned to the Brit. "You can follow him?"_

"_He's got about twenty minutes' headstart on us," the Brit said, standing up. "Tracking through these century forests is a pain. Springing up so quickly there's hardly any time for a proper ecosystem, screws up the tracking. Be better off hunting visually."_

_The Frenchman grunted, and the American nodded in agreement._

"_Someone needs to hide the mules," he said. "Leaving them sitting by the road will invite marshals."_

"_Right, we can't leave them up there," the Cossak said. "Syrian, Mongol, go back up and get the mules off the road. Hide them in the spot we found two klicks up the road toward the LZ for the Gun. Rest of us will split up in two teams. French, Brit, then me and American. Other two rejoin us when you can."_

"_Recommend we take these two routes," the American said, pointing out a pair of roughly level paths, one down the slopes toward the waterline and the other higher up, along the hills where the mining outfits had been set up. "Most likely routes he would have taken, scared as he was."_

_He did his best to keep his fingers from shaking as he traced the likely routes. If he could do this properly, he could avoid the kid getting killed and maybe even let him escape. And if he did take one of those paths through the woods, it would reduce the number of the Six who might find him. Two would be easier to evade than four. That was why he had made the suggestion to have the others move the mules._

"_Good idea," the Cossack said. "You and me will take the lower route. You two, take the upper one." The Brit and Frenchman nodded. "Okay, let's move."_

_The American stood still for a moment while the other five began moving; the Brit and Frenchman starting southwest, following the route on the data pad that would take them up through the mining area, the Syrian and the Mongol clambering back up the gulley to the mules, and the Cossack starting southeast toward the trail along the river. He found his boots moving a moment later, his body responding without really thinking about it. He'd been on so many prowling patrols and seek-and-destroy missions like this one that his steps came naturally and automatically._

_That was both disheartening and comforting. The latter because it would give him time to think and plan, while the former because he was liable to react on instinct instead of thinking things through - which meant he might do something terrible to either his comrades or the boy. _

_After all, he'd nearly killed him in the alley, before he'd seen his face and shifted his aim, throwing off the shot._

_What he'd told Konstantin in the bar half the 'Verse away was true. He hated this. He didn't want to kill another man. Too many corpses had piled up, and too much blood was on his hands. He was getting weary. Flakey. Bone-tired. And he really didn't want to kill a young man in the prime of his life, no matter who he was. _

_But that wasn't the whole story. The truth was . . . ._

_Andy opened his mouth to speak, but stopped, uncertain._

_He could walk away. He could tell Alexi everything, and then leave. The Cossack couldn't compel him to stay. He could just leave and remove himself from the murder that was about to ensue. He could throw his rifle down and stop killing for credits. _

_But if he did that now, the others would still find the boy, and the remaining five would kill him._

_He couldn't leave them like this. There had to be a way to get the kid out without anyone else dying. He just had to find a way._

_The American set his teeth and followed the group's unofficial leader, heavy assault rifle in hand, and tried to figure out how he'd get them all out of this alive without anymore blood being shed._

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_ **


	69. Chapter Three: The Four

_**Chapter Three: The Four**_

_He rushed up the trail, slapping aside branches and bushes lining the old mining path. Jayne didn't think to hide his tracks or his path; speed was more important. He knew the killers were right behind him, as he'd caught a distant glimpse of dark-clad men descending into the ravine where he'd crashed a few minutes ago._

_Jayne's hands patted along his jacket pockets and his flanks as he ran. Fear mixed with exhilaration to set his heart pounding, but the youth had enough presence of mind to check what he was carrying as he ran up the path away from the killers. What he turned up was less than heartening._

_There was his revolver, with six rounds in it, and a speedloader with six more. A candy bar, half-eaten. A lighter his uncle had given him a long time ago, the kind that could lock open and keep burning if you set it down or dropped it. A couple of hundred credits from three different governments. A multipurpose knife._

How the hell am I gonna fight six professional killers with just that? _he thought. Panic tried to claw its way back up, but he pushed it down. Couldn't think straight if he was panicking, but he wasn't exactly involved in a matter that gave seed to rational thought._

_But he was running up a trail that the enemy could easily follow._

_Jayne slowed down as he realized that, stopping next to a tree and leaning against it for a moment with his shoulder. He thought for a few seconds, trying to remember the layout of this part of the dustball, but he couldn't remember the specifics from their flyover. Hills, mining trails criss-crossing the century forest, a dam somewhere down the river._

_He looked up, trying to control his panting, and wiped his brow. _

_Mines meant equipment. Shelter. Maybe explosives._

_He looked back down the trail he'd left, and shook his head. He couldn't outrun them, and he damned well couldn't outfight them. Not face-to-face. So he had to get sneaky and clever._

_He was going to have to fight dirty. Jayne was not the most well-educated man, but he knew how to fight, how to hunt, and how to put his wits to work. He had to improve his options. _

_Mines, then._

_From what little he could remember about the local topography, there was a mining station north of here. He'd find something there, he guessed. And if they were going to run him down, then he'd take advantage of that._

_Jayne started north, following the mining trail._

* * *

Jayne heard the ship approaching, and slowed down. He turned, shielding his eyes, and peered across the trees toward the direction of the approaching engines. He couldn't see the ship through the clouds, and snow was starting to fall and further obscure visuals. If they had mil-grade scanners on that towboat of theirs' they would likely spot him, but they were nickel-bit mercenaries. Still, he couldn't assume anything.

There were trees to the southwest, a thick-growing copse atop a ridge overlooking the spot in the snow where he'd dropped his radio. It would help shield him from thermals, and his hunting gear and hood would prevent most of his infrared signature from being detectable by most gear.

He started for the trees, fingers playing over Vera without thinking about it, making sure a round was racked and his scope was in place.

Long ago, Jayne Cobb ran from this same man's hired gang of killers because they were better than him in every way. Superior weapons, better training, greater experience, and larger numbers. He'd just been a scared kid with only one weapon that he could rely on.

It was the same one he was using now, though augmented a bit by Vera.

This time, he reckoned, he wasn't running because he was afraid. This time Jayne Cobb knew what he was up against.

_Bring it on, Cossack,_ he thought as he scaled the ridge. _We'll wrestle again. I survived last time on the skin of my teeth. This time, I'm ending it. _

One way or the other.

* * *

_The Brit crouched at the side of the trail, nodded, and rose quickly._

_"Bugger headed this way," he whispered, and the Frenchman nodded. He looked up the trail as they continued to jog up the path, and the Frenchman listened to his companion with one ear while bending the other toward the landscape around them._

_"Tracks are deep in the heel and the tips of his boots," the Brit said. "He's running fast. Steps are uneven. Might be favoring one foot a bit. He's not trying to conceal his tracks at all, so he's flat out running from us." He keyed his radio. "One, this is Four."_

_"Four, One," the Cossack replied. "Send it."_

_"Bastard went this way," he reported. "We're tailing him. The trails should meet up further down the slope toward the dam, right?"_

_"Yeah, looks that way. We'll move ahead and cut him off."_

_"Right," the Brit said with a grunt. "We'll push him toward you two. Wasn't there a footbridge or something across the river your way?"_

_"Spotted it, couple kilometers north of the dam. Rickety thing, but yeah. It's exposed. If he doubles back we'll spot him." _

_"Okay. We're on him this way. Four out."_

_The Frenchman slowed and muttered something, and the Brit paused too. He frowned, looking around the century forest._

_"Yeah, got a point," he murmured. "He could be lyin' in wait for us."_

_Gustav grunted, rolling his shoulders, and the Brit nodded, mouth curling into a half-smile._

_"I know, right?" he said. "Unlikely. Just a kid. But he's led us on a merry chase so far."_

_The Frenchman nodded, then muttered something else._

_"Well, just keep an eye out," the Brit replied. "Last thing we need is to underestimate this boy. He's been resourceful enough."_

_The Frenchman peered across the green canopy overhead and through the thin, young trees looming around them. He snorted, and nodded ahead._

_"Maybe," the Brit said after a moment. "Too bad about this contract. Don't get paid until they're all dead."_

_Gustav mumbled quietly and chuckled._

_"Hah. Yeah, 'the Seven Rifles' doesn't have the same ring," he agreed, and started down trail again. "Look, let's just run this bastard down and put him out of his misery."_

_They continued down the path for several minutes before the Brit held up a hand._

_"He broke off the trail here," he said. He pointed to their right. "That way. North, into the woods."_

_Without preamble, the pair started through the brush after the boy._

* * *

_The edge of the forest loomed up ahead, and Jayne slowed as he reached the treeline. He could see the hill rising up to the north, trees cut down around a hole dug into the solid rock. Wood and metal tracks ran out of the hole toward a cleared receiving area, and a wooden shack sat about ten meters from the spot where the ore would be dumped. There was another wide area near the dump where the grass was flattened or cleared away. No vehicle tracks led away from the mining area, so they probably airlifted the ore out._

_Local seasons were rough, and winter had passed a few weeks ago. That was always a problem on recently-terraformed planets. They'd obviously shut down the mine until the winter passed but had not restarted work yet. No one was moving around and the shack looked disused for several months._

_He edged out into the clearing and started for the old shack. It was made of old wood boards with a pointed tin roof and some ceramic gutters. The wood was broken and jagged in a few spots, especially at the very top. He saw some missing boards and big gap just below the rooftop, though not quite enough for a full-grown man to get through without applying some boot._

_Jayne circled around the grassy clearing, noting a small window, likely for ventilation, and a solid-looking wooden door with an old, semi-rusted padlock on the south side. His boot fixed that. He was young but sturdy enough, and though it took three hard kicks, the old lock gave way. He stepped inside, revolver low at his side, and peeked around the interior of the shack._

_The inside confirmed his suspicions: it hadn't been used in some months. A thin layer of dust covered everything; not enough for prolonged disuse. Axes, both woodcutter's and picks, hung on the walls alongside shovels and other tools. He saw fuel canisters, a couple of propane tanks and some gasoline drums for a small power generator; this place wasn't wealthy or big enough to handle anything more advanced. Their airlift was probably the most expensive part of the whole operation. There was a row of gas masks and helmets, and a large, flat box that had a small padlock on it. Jayne hammered the padlock off - it was as old as the one outside, and opened the case._

_He sucked in a breath as he saw what lay inside: a line of small, flat blocks of gray, clay-like material. Above them were small coils of wire, plugs, and a thin console of switches._

_"Now that's right shiny," the youth whispered. He wasn't an expert on mining, but his pa was a miner, and he'd shown his eldest a thing or two about the business before he'd moved on to worthier - or at least more lucrative - ventures like robbing banks. Jayne didn't remember the precise name for this compound (It started with a "T" and ended with "ite") but it was a binary compound that was cheap to make, legal, and made a good substitute for dynamite. A good hit with a bullet or a flame could set it off if it was set up proper._

_Jayne turned and looked around the shack, thinking furiously._

Remember, Jayne_, his uncle had told him, _if you're ever in a pinch, look all around you. The world is filled with weapons waiting for a sharp mind to use them.

_He swept the room, a plan forming in his mind, and then he looked up into the darkened upper areas of the shack. He saw thick wooden beams bracing the walls and old, rotted wood on the north side of the shed between the tin roof and the wood walls. _

_A savage smile hit him, borne of worry and desperate hope._

_Jayne had an idea._

* * *

Kaylee and Inara listened to Simon as he explained the plan while hurrying downstrairs into the cargo bay of _Serenity_. As they did so, Kaylee frowned at what he was saying, his words coming out quick and anxious. He was going over the why's but not the how's.

"-and if we can't take that vessel down they will eventually find Jayne and then our hideout, at which point-"

"Simon, hold up a jot," she said. "You're talking about shootin' down a big heavily-armed ship. We know we've got to, but we ain't got the firepower for that."

He paused, shaking his head, and started to look around the cargo bay. This anxiety he was showing wasn't anything like when they'd been planning heists before. He was always calm and logical, but now he was anxious and uncertain.

Time constraints, she thought, coming to an understanding. Simon worked great at planning things if he'd a little time to himself, but they're working against time, and that was putting him off.

"Wait, no," Simon said, holding up his hands. He looked around the room. "We do. We can. We're in an old drone fighter bay."

Her eyes widened as she suddenly got his meaning, but Kaylee found that realization chased by the problems associated with that. Before she could speak, Inara cut in.

"Simon, this base was disarmed years ago," she said. "None of the drones are armed. None of them can even _fly_."

"We don't need them armed," Simon said, and Kaylee nodded.

"Yeah. I mean, no," she said. "Only difference 'tween a drone and a missile is that the drone's supposed to come back and it don't have an explosive inside, right?"

Inara nodded, pensive.

"Can we get one airborne?" she asked, and they both looked to Kaylee. The mechanic bit her lip, but slowly nodded as she puzzled through the problem.

"I think so," she said, and then nodded. "Yeah, I think we can. These drones didn't use grav-boots or impellers. They were just jet engines and basic flight systems."

"They would have stripped those," Simon said, but Kaylee shook her head.

"Yeah, but that ain't a matter to worry on," she said. "I can strip a thruster from 'Nara's shuttle."

"Really?" Inara asked with a frown. "That would take-"

"Nah, I can do it with the right gear, won't take but thirty minutes," Kaylee said. "Won't be pretty and I'm gonna have to weld it down tight, and it might shake loose after an hour's flight, but it don't need to last if we're just slapping together a ship missile. Real problem's going to be controlling it."

"That's where Inara comes in," Simon said, turning to the Companion. She blinked for a moment, before her eyes widened in realization.

"You need me to guide it in," she said, and Simon nodded.

"You are the best pilot we have available," he said. "But we're going to need guidance equipment. Sensors, software, flight control systems . . . ."

"I might cobble that together on spare parts," Kaylee said, but then winced. "But not in the time we need."

"We won't need to," Simon said. "Rip it out of Inara's shuttle."

"With the thruster?" Inara said, then nodded. "You're right. Shuttle flight equipment would work."

"I can rig up a radio comms link," Kaylee said. "Pull some of the gear out of the nav system on your shuttle, link it to the drone, and let you fly the drone remotely."

"Then all we need," Inara added, "is to make the drone destructive enough to destroy that ship." They all looked to one another, and nodded at roughly the same time.

"Jayne's bunk," they said in unison.

"But we need a warhead, not just explosives," Simon added, holding up a hand. "Do we-"

"Zoe," Inara said. "She'll know how."

"Yes. Zoe was in the army, she'd know how to rig some explosives," Simon nodded after a moment. "We have to work fast. I'll get Zoe to work on rigging a warhead. Kaylee, get the gear you need to extract that thruster. Inara, get the nav comp from your shuttle. I'll find a drone intact enough to house everything."

The two women nodded, and the trio split apart to cobble together their best hope for getting out of this.

* * *

_The Brit stared across the clearing, thinking. They'd been checking the area around the mine entrance for a few minutes from within the treeline, and had found nothing out of the ordinary, up until the Frenchman noticed a broken lock on the shed and pointed it out._

_"One, this is Four," he whispered into his radio as he crouched under the tree cover, twenty meters from the little wooden shed._

_"Four, One," the Cossack replied. "Send it."_

_"Possible contact on the upper path," he said. "Mining shack, one point two klicks from the point where we diverged." He glanced to the Frenchman, and gestured with his head toward the shack. "We're checking now."_

_"Need backup?" the Cossack asked. "I can have Five and Six move up to join you."_

_"No," The Brit said shaking his head. He caught himself in the middle of the unnecessary motion and stopped. "If he's not here he'll just get further ahead by the time they catch up. besides, we can handle this bloke."_

_"Keep on the line, just in case," the Cossack said._

_"Yes, mum." _

_He glanced over to the Frenchman, and chopped a hand forward, indicating he should advance around the north side of the shack. The Frenchman nodded, and they moved out of the trees._

_The Brit stepped into the clearing, weapon shouldered. His eyes flicked across the overgrown, knee-high grass around the mining shack, and he started forward around the south side. The shack had no windows save a small one on the south side, opposite the door. It was a simple glass affair, probably for ventilation and to keep wasps and birds out._

_The Brit slowly circled around, and heard a click on his radio. The Frenchman had found nothing, and he moved around the north side to where his comrade was covering the door. The Frenchman glanced at him, tapped the barrel of his rifle with his bracing hand, and made a circle motion with the barrel._

_The Brit frowned. They'd come down to the planet with twelve magazines each, and they had expended a lot of bullets so far; he was down to eight magazines, and that was the average among the team. If they did as the Frenchman was suggesting, pouring an entire mag's worth of bullets into the shack, that would put further strain on their ammo, and they might need to fight off local law before getting off world. On the other hand, the kid might be hiding inside, pointing a gun at the door and waiting for them to breach. They both had a stunner, but that wasn't guaranteed to prevent wild shots._

_"Good call," the Brit said, making his decision. The Frenchman went high, while he went low. Their weapons thundered, and wood splintered as they loosed a barrage of bursts into the shack. Gustav fired shots at head and shoulder height, while the Brit put them at knee height, angled downwards so that they'd hit the kid if he was prone. They carefully spaced their shots to hit every possible man-sized space, walking their bullets across and then raising and lowering their respective shots to cut through at chest height._

_The Brit consciously staggered his fire so he was still shooting when the Frenchman ran out of bullets. As soon as Gustav had reloaded his weapon, the Brit dropped his empty magazine and replaced it, and they both advanced on the door. The Brit made two quick hand gestures, indicating zones of fire when they breached, and the Frenchman nodded._

_"Stunner!" the Brit hissed as they reached the door, and kicked it open with a bang of battered wood. The Frenchman chucked a stunner into the room, and a sonic pulse erupted inside the little shack. Unlike traditional flash grenades, the stunner didn't run the risk of igniting flammables. The Brit felt his ears pop slightly through his earplugs, but the walls blocked most of the sonic pulse._

_He swung around, and stepped into the doorway, weapon leading. Any soldier who had ever breached a room where hostiles might be waiting would testify that the heartstopping moment where you went through that doorway was one of the most frightening experiences imaginable. The Brit and the Frenchman were old hands at kicking in doors and rushing inside, but even so it was still a heartpounding experience. He went left, Gustav went right, stomping into the little shack with weapons high, keeping his breath steady as he could. _

_The interior of the shack was deadly silent. Light streamed in from the dozens of bullet holes pounded into the walls, and he could see his shadow looming against the far wall. They stepped around the room, and the Brit sniffed the dusty air. He curled up his lip as he smelled an intense gasoline reek._

_"That propane?" he asked, and the Frenchman grunted an affirmative as they swept the shack. There were a couple of old propane tanks, as well as a couple of canisters of old gasoline fuel, all on the floor. They may have hit them while firing into the shack._

_"Good thing weren't using tracers," the Brit said, and the Frenchman grunted yet again. Some gasoline had spilled on the old wooden floor. He glanced around the room, then frowned as he saw a couple of blocks of composite material lying on the floor next to the door._

_"Is that, uh," he frowned, trying to remember the name. He wasn't sure if he remembered it correctly. "Mining explo-"_

_The Brit's stomach sank, and he understood. A heartbeat later, he heard a click above him, and didn't bother looking._

_"Out!" he shouted, and the Frenchman was already moving, leaping toward the door and away from the trap. The Brit raised his weapon and fired it blindly overhead, into the two crossbeams holding up the roof, and the man he knew was hiding up there._

* * *

_Jayne had managed to hold on to the lighter when the stunner went off through sheer cussed willpower. Staying on the rafter had been harder, and he'd nearly fallen off. The two killers below had been making enough noise rushing inside and jabbering to cover him as he regained his balance on the beam. _

_But the next step had made him hesitate. It was dumb, and he knew it was stupid. Only a moon-brain or a desperate man would try it, which meant he was definitely the latter and maybe a bit of the former. If they'd used incendiary bullets or grenades or a flash bomb, he might have gone up with the shack too._

_But they hadn't, they were inside, and they hadn't looked up yet. Luck was on his side._

_Jayne locked the lighter open, ignited it, and let it go._

_"Sorry, Uncle," he whispered, and scrambled toward the rotted old wood beneath the rooftop's leaky edge. One of the men below shouted in alarm and started firing up toward him, bullets punching through the tin room and splintering wood. The report from the weapon was hideously powerful in the confined space, and his heart pounded in his ears as he scrambled for the gap in the rotted wood. He hit the old panels, kicking out with all his might, and the wood buckled under his boot, falling away. He dove through the sudden gap, jagged wood clawing at his flanks and back and head, tracing long, bloody lines and ripping his shirt._

_Then he was falling outside, and could hear screaming within as the two killers went for the door. Sunlight touched his face, and then wind exploded out of his chest as he hit the dirt outside. Jayne rolled over the grass, grunting in pain. Dead grass and dark dirt plastered to the sweat and blood covering his body, and he curled up into a ball._

_The gasoline went up, followed by the propane a heartbeat later, and then the old mining explosives, the binary compound he recognized from helping his father work in the mines back home a long, long time ago._

_The shack exploded in a fiery hellstorm, wood and metal and dust and shrapnel rippling outward in a wild cloud of smoke and heat. Jayne's ears, already ringing from the stunner, went completely deaf, and he could only feel the pounding of objects raining down around him and skipping off his back._

* * *

_Pain surged down his back._

_His weapon was gone. Dropped somewhere in all the noise. Fingers scrabbled over his chest, and he found a familiar handle. He drew the blade._

_Hot, active agony rolled over his shoulders and back and thighs, but as he scrambled to his feet, he saw movement. A gangly youth rising to his feet through the smoke and haze of pain._

_One thought ran through his rattled brain, and the Brit surged forward, knife clenched in white knuckles._

* * *

_Jayne sucked in a breath to refill his battered lungs and rolled onto his back. The youth scrabbled for his revolver as he stood, hunting for any survivors. There was smoke and dust everywhere, and he couldn't hear anything. Fires burned all across the clearing, grass and wood and thrown debris, and-_

_The man surged out of the smoke, mouth open in a roar of hatred and fury. His back was aflame, the backpack he wore ignited and setting his clothes and balaclava on fire, but he didn't seem to care. He charged straight across the clearing, a seventeen-inch knife in his hand, face twisted in fury and rage and agony, and went straight toward Jayne._

_Jayne Cobb had managed to keep his composure thus far, but the sight of this berserk figure charging him with a giant knife _while on fire _was too much. He screamed, raising his revolver, and felt himself literally shit himself where he stood. The youth screamed, firing his revolver at the hideous, ghastly spectre charging him _(while on _gorram _fire!) _over and over again. Bullets slammed into the burning man's chest as he blazed across the four meters separating them._

_He jerked as the first bullet hit him in the leg. The second missed, as did the third. The fourth hit him in the meat of his left bicep, while the fifth caught him dead center in the chest. The sixth hit the burning man in the throat, and he stumbled sideways, surprise warring for control of his face. The man then went to his knees, the knife tumbling from his grip, and slumped to the side._

_The Brit's eyes glassed over as he stared up at the sky, the flames consuming him, and then went still._

* * *

"I have it located!" called the Bailey's voice over the intercom, several minutes after they had gathered in the bay. Konstantin nodded, flexing the fingers of his cybernetic arm. The machinery hissed, but the electrical impulses shooting up into his brain gave him the same satisfying sensation of clenching muscles and popping fingers. "Two minutes!"

"He will be long gone by then," said Voronin as he slipped extra magazines into his vest pouches. They were going after one man, but Konstantin insisted they went in with a full loadout. He respected his prey too much.

"I did not hire Brayko for his sunny disposition!" Konstantin replied. The rage that had filled him in the cockpit had faded, or perhaps it had simply been pushed back under his usual sarcastic humor. Brayko, checking the scope on his marksman's rifle, muttered under his breath.

"Snowfall is thick down there," the little man said. "But I can track him unless a blizzard hits us."

"Do you need that scope?" asked Cantrella, one of the few men on the crew who didn't speak with a Russian accent. He was from Londinium, and his voice was tinged with a faint British accent. The wide-barreled squad machinegun he used was slung over his back, and he carried three other box magazines of high explosive rounds to feed the heavy weapon. Again, Konstantin respected his prey too much to not go in loaded for bear or battalions.

"We fight in century forest," Brayko said. "Lots of gaps where the seeders missed, and mountains to boot. Good ground for scopes."

"Whatever kills this puke fastest," remarked Rezzin, finishing loading and prepping his rifle. "I've got money on the flashball finals on Odin."

"I'm not paying your loan shark," Konstanin grumbled.

"Yeah, and neither am I," Rezzin snorted. He patted his rifle. "The only thing I'm paying that sack of _luh suh _is steel-jacketed hypervelocity rounds if he comes collecting."

"Maybe I'll help settle the debt," Cantrella added. Chuckles and agreement went around the room.

"Thirty seconds!" Bailey called over the intercom. "I see nothing on my scopes, but keep your eyes open!"

"Yeah, maybe once we get paid, we'll upgrade the sensors to something that isn't shit for ground scan!" Rezzen called, and Cantrella laughed again.

"We've got the legendary Brayko, we don't need ground-scan!" he replied as the five men on the hunt team moved to the center of the bay. Brayko sneered at the good-natured jab.

They hooked their harnesses to the edge of the lower bay doors, and waited, listening intently to the engines. Their pitch shifted as Bailey brought the _Gorram Gun _into a hovering position, and the bay doors hissed open. Their weapons were at the ready as the doors swept down and out, but below them they could only see blank whiteness with scattered green pine trees. Frigid wind whipped up into the bay, clashing with the warm, pressurized air. Their lines dropped.

"Clear!" Konstantin yelled. "Down! Down!"

They leapt down one by one, sliding down the lines toward the snow-covered rock below. Konstantin led, with the others following suit in a staggered formation. The Cossack hit the snow, spinning around and raising his weapon, sweeping for targets in the rocky, rough landscape. He could barely see the sky through the white ceiling and whirling snow.

Brayko hit the snow next to him, covering the opposite direction, followed by Voronin. Cantrella came down next, and Rezzin started down.

"I see his radio," Voronin said, nodding to a spot in the snow where a small black rectangle was visible. "No shock, he's not here."

"Don't touch it," Konstantin said as Cantrella hit the snow behind him. "Likely the bastard booby-trapped-"

Rezzin's head split down the middle, two-thirds of it vanishing in a cone of exploding bone and blood and brain matter, and his body tumbled to the snow.

* * *

"Gotcha," Jayne Cobb whispered, four hundred meters away. He rose, spun, and rushed into the thick pine trees that were covering his position, as Vera's report sounded around the mountains, scattering deer.

* * *

"Where the fuck did that-"

"-down and search!"

"I don't see-"

"Four hundred meters southwest," Brayko reported calmly, looking into his scope. The sound tracker in his scope was tracing the direction the shot had come from. "I don't see him, but he was in those trees on the ridge."

"Cantrella!" Konstantin ordered, both furious and impressed at the range of that shot. He was definitely still using Andy's old rifle.

"On it," the SAW gunner replied, sweeping his weapon up. The next twenty seconds were dominated by a high-pitched screeching/ripping howl as the machinegun cut loose, launching hundreds of explosive rounds toward the treeline that Brayko had designated. Tree trunks shattered and split apart, and several of the pine trees fell as Cantrella let his wrath loose on the ridgeline. Overhead, the _Gorram Gun _lowered its chin guns and began spitting low-caliber anti-personnel rounds, a thunderous barrage of gunfire that knocked down several more trees.

* * *

The world around and behind Jayne was shattering and exploding. Rounds rained down all around him, wild and unaimed, but the explosive bullets they were shooting at him didn't need to be accurate, only lucky. Bark and wood cracked and blew apart, sending wooden splinters and metal shrapnel screaming through the snow.

Pain flared up his left forearm, but he bit it down and kept running, ears ringing and heart pounding.

Then he was past the explosions and ripping bark, and he kept on running.

And with every step, Jayne Cobb laughed in exhilaration.

* * *

"Cease fire!" Konstantin ordered, though it was more for Bailey's benefit than Cantrella, as his light machinegun had run empty and he was changing magazines. The other three survivors of the ground team had their weapons trained on the ridgeline and woods.

"I don't see him," Brayko said after a few moments. "Either we got him, we got the shit out of him, or he got to cover.

"I can sweep those woods, sir," Bailey called over the radio. "Drop the Mark 27s, burn that whole area out."

"No," Konstantin said, shaking his head. "We need an intact body. Niska will not accept unidentifiable corpses, and cluster napalm doesn't create anything but."

"Sonic charges?" Bailey suggested.

"Same problem, only he'll be jelly instead of crispy," Konstantin said. "We will hunt this bastard down and take his head." His voice was edged in hard fury. He glanced back at Rezzin's nearly decapitated corpse, and knew exactly which weapon had done that.

"Bailey, take the _Gun _back up and shoot down their shuttle," Konstantin hissed. "The rest of you, move out. We hunt."

* * *

The big, trundling freighter with its not-so-trundling weaponry had waved off ten minutes ago, which made Wash a hell of a lot happier. He'd heard Jayne's transmission, and he could guess why the enemy ship had pulled away, and that tempered his good cheer when he imagined that it had stopped chasing him to pit its guns against one of his crewmates.

But the drones it sent after him ruined what little good feeling he still had.

They were little things, cheap aircraft mostly made of a modest engine and a tiny robot brain. They flitted through the air after him, a hundred meters up, trying to follow Wash as he weaved through the canyons.

The good news was that they weren't being remote-piloted; he could tell that much from their simple maneuvers. That also meant that they were using their own internal AI to pursue him, which meant they were little smarter than insects. The bad news was that since they weren't being piloted by humans, he couldn't distract them or rely on slow reaction times. The drones were unimaginative but singleminded in their pursuit.

"_Jung chi duh go-se de _robots," Wash muttered as he ducked under an archway spanning the canyons. The drones continued flying above, spaced evenly apart, tracking his position. He didn't think they had thermals, but if they did they would spot him without any trouble at all.

"Wash, how you doing?" Zoe called over the radio. He flicked on his radio microphone as he twisted the shuttle around a turn in the canyon.

"Trying to dodge the drones," he replied. "The big ship went after Jayne, but they've got these little _hun dans _chasing me."

Despite his frustration, Wash's voice remained awfully level. His heart was pounding in his chest, and if he had time to think about it he might fly into one of his usual jerky spasms of excitable nervousness; it was either icy calmness or hysterics when he flew. Wash knew no middle ground. He was middle groundless. One way or the other, that was how he-

"Just keep them off you for a bit," Zoe cut back in. "Doc's got a plan, and he and Kaylee and Inara are working at it now."

"Yeah? What kind of plan?" he asked. "I'm hoping its one of the ones where the screaming is reserved for the other guys and not us."

"If all goes well, there won't be any screaming," she said. "Just some explosions. Doc's got Kaylee turning one of the old fighter-drones into a missile."

"Oooh," Wash said, imagining the possibilities. "For everyone's sake, I hope this jury-rigging-a-missile plan works."

"Just be careful, okay?" Zoe asked, and Wash heard the worry in her voice.

"Yeah, don't worry," Wash replied. "We're getting through this. Love." He closed the channel, and tightened his grip on the controls.

_Leaf on the wind. Keep weaving through these canyons and keep them scrambling to track you. The little rust droppings are-_

Wash blinked as a sudden idea struck him. He glanced to the sensors, and noticed the drones were still flying in their formation, following him overhead.

He knew a preprogrammed flight plan when he saw one. Wash triggered the thrusters, wheeled the shuttle around, and started to ascend.

The drones slowed to a halt, hovering in place.

"You get what you pay for," Wash murmured as he ascended toward the lead drone. It was a meter long, a quarter that across, with stubby wings and a small thruster module. He knew from experience that the devices were made of cheap plastic and light metals. They were maybe twenty kilos at the heaviest. Wash's shuttle was several metric tons, a hell of a lot faster, and rated for atmospheric reentry.

The tiny insect minds of the drones didn't alter their course or try to evade, as they had his shuttle locked dead center in their sensors. They had been ordered to track the shuttle and stay within a certain distance of it, so they saw no reason to try to avoid the shuttle as it closed in.

He sideswiped the first drone, and the shuttle jumped slightly as the little machine crumpled against the hull and then tumbled away below. He swerved around and slammed into the second one, smashing it nearly flat, and turned on the third. The shuttle whirled on the motionless drone, and Wash charged toward it.

He was a couple of seconds from impact when another idea hit him, and he juked the shuttle sideways, barely missing the hovering machine. Wash brought the shuttle around to a halt, thinking, and he grinned again. His fingers played carefully across the controls for the craft, and he brought it around toward the motionless drone. He inched toward it until the drone hovered right next to the access hatch, and Wash locked his elevation in place before rising.

A minute later, the shuttle's hatch slid open, and frigid air shot into the cabin. He grit his teeth and threw the looped cord he'd fastened to the safety hook inside the hatch over the nose of the drone. He tightened it around the drone's wings, and once he was sure it was secure, he drew the revolver he'd taken to carrying. Wash set his feet, leveled the sidearm, and fired into the drone's engine. It took three shots before the drone abruptly dropped, and the cord snapped taught. The shuttle jostled slightly but stayed in place, and he started hauling the cord up.

A few moments of grunting, manly work later, Wash had the drone inside the shuttle. He made sure the sensors were well and truly smashed with the butt of his revolver, and then headed back to the pilot's chair.

Now, he just had to find a safe spot to hide until he could disassemble the drone's brain and get both the transmitter and its encryption codes.

* * *

_"Four, this is One! Four! Three, Four come in dammit!"_

_The Cossack and the American were standing knee deep in the thick grass growing in the middle of the century forest's lower trails. The trees were thick enough to impede vision but not so far apart that they fully choked out the light, letting the grass grow thick and tall where soil found enough purchase in the rough hills. The American kept watch while the Cossack called out over the radio, trying to reach the other team._

_They'd heard the explosion mere moments ago, and the American felt his stomach fall out. The silence over the radio made things bad, but Konstantin's calls, and the faint edge of fear and worry that the American could hear in his voice, made it all the more troubling._

_The radio suddenly crackled._

_"One, this is Five," the Syrian called over the radio. "We see the smoke. On the move toward target. Give us three minutes."_

_"Hurry," the Cossack said. "I have no contact with Three or Four."_

_"Understood," the Syrian replied. The American exhaled, and shook his head grimly. At least if they found anyone who had survived, the Syrian could patch them back up. He was a miracle-worker when it came to dealing with trauma._

_"So what's the move?" he asked the Cossack as he finished talking on the radio. Konstantin peered up through the trees toward the rising column of smoke marking where two of their comrades had just gone silent._

_"That smoke will draw the law on us like flies to a corpse," the Cossack said quietly. "We have to end this quickly."_

_"There's only a few marshals and sheriffs out here anyway," the American noted. "Serious response is going to take a while."_

_"After we blew up their men in town, they're going to get serious about hunting us down," Konstantin said. He continued staring at the smoke. "We find this boy and kill him quickly before he slips out of our fingers."_

_"Should we pack in?" the American asked, and the Cossack shook his head slowly._

_"If he took one or both of my men," Konstantin murmured. "He will suffer for it."_

_The American felt his stomach empty out even more at those words. The Cossack pulled his eyes away from the smoke. He pulled out the datapad with the map on it, and nodded._

_"He is up there, and headed away from us. Terrain along that upper trail is rough. He could divert to the mines further upslope, but I doubt it. He will head further along the trail, or try to flee through the woods. But he cannot circle around to backtrack; terrain is too rough." He looked up, eyes scanning along the trees, and sniffed a couple of times. "His path is still restricted. He has only one way to go, no matter whether he goes through the woods or the mining trails."_

_The American looked over the map and nodded._

_"The dam or the bridge spanning the river," he said, and the Cossack nodded, expression carved out of grim Russian stone._

_"He must pass either," Konstantin said. "That is where we find him and kill him."_

* * *

"He had to go this way," Brayko hissed, nodding toward the thickening copse of trees ahead. "The tracks lead south toward those trees."

They were climbing the ridge in a scattered gun line, each man ten meters apart with their weapons up. Konstantin peered through his snow goggles, cursing the steadily-building snowstorm. He should have had thermals. They had thermals when he was commanding the Six, but times now were too lean.

_No_, he thought. _I do not need technology to help me kill you, Cobb. _His cybernetic hand clenched_. I will kill you with steel and hatred and cold Cossack blood._

The collapsed treeline drew closer as they advanced. Konstantin swept his weapon over the area and pressed forward, the team following.

_I will find you, Cobb, _he thought, _and I will end you. Your life for four of mine._

* * *

_The Syrian and the Mongol entered the clearing, weapons at the ready. They moved slowly and cautiously, for the smoke was still thick and heavy and the fires were still burning where the shack had stood. The Syrian gestured for the Mongol to circle around the south side, and he moved around the north._

_He got halfway around the north side of the shack before he brought himself to a halt._

_A burnt, mangled corpse lay on the ground. The flames that had ravaged his back, thighs, and left arm were snuffed out, but the fabric of his clothes and his blackened skin were still smoking. His chest and neck were both bloody messes, shot by a high-caliber weapon, likely a revolver or pistol judging by the damage around the entry wounds._

_The Frenchman, minor burns marking his back and the side of his face, knelt beside the Brit's corpse. His hand covered the body's eyes, and he looked up slowly at the Syrian as he approached, dragging out his medical kit._

_He didn't need to say anything. The hollow look in Gustav's eyes was all he needed to see. The Syrian applied a quick burn ointment to the injured man's wounds, while the Frenchman quietly pocketed a few things from the Brit's corpse: a compass, a small gold watch, and the long knife laying beside him._

_The Syrian caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and looked up to see the Mongol standing at the edge of the clearing, face impassive as he looked over the corpse of his comrade. He slowly turned away, putting a hand to his radio. He spoke quietly, informing the others of what they'd found, but otherwise showed no concern._

Fucking sociopath_, the Syrian thought._

_"You good to fight?" the medic asked the Frenchman, who nodded, his expression never changing. He slowly stood once the Syrian had finished checking him out, and despite the fact that the man's face never changed, the medic saw pain and anger and grief behind his eyes._

_The Frenchman, ignoring the pain he had to be feeling from the burns and bruises, strode past the surprised Mongol and drove into the woods, leaving the other two men to scramble after him._

* * *

Jayne plunged through the trees, blood running down his left arm where he'd been clipped. He hopped from clear spot to clear spot, keeping his eye out for roots hidden under the snow. The century forest hadn't had time to put down big roots, but that made the little ones all the more dangerous.

They were behind him. Hunting, advancing, weapons high and murder on their minds.

Nothing new there.

He managed a tight grin as he paused next to a tree and deliberately rubbed his bleeding arm on it. This fight was a decade and more in the making, and now that they were after him, he felt . . . .

He felt _good_. Adrenaline was surging through him, and the pain in his arm and the burn in his legs and chest were distant and irrelevant. He was hunting, and being hunted, and something about it was giving him an adrenaline high that he had rarely felt.

So many other fights he'd been in had been business. They had guns, he had guns, and both had a vested interest in putting bullets in each other. That was the life of a mercenary.

But this was _personal_, and only a fight with a personal stake in it was this . . ._ potent_.

"_Gorram _it," Jayne said, moving away from the blood-stained bark. "I get eloquent-ish when I get shot."

He turned and pushed deeper into the woods.

Let 'em come. He'd be waiting.

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_The big challenge with writing this chapter is that I've got to juggle an enormous number of concurrent plotlines and events. On top of that, there's a lot of original characters I'm working on (though that number is going to drop off as this story continues...heh.) Making sure that the Six, particularly Konstantin, feel realistic and distinctive and alive is a real challenge while balancing them against our favorite canon characters.

The good news is that we're more than halfway done, and the really good stuff is coming up.

Until next chapter . . . .


	70. Chapter Four: The Three

_**Chapter Four: The Three**_

_The dam loomed up ahead, less than a hundred meters away. He could hear the roar of water as it sluiced down through concrete funnels to spill out the other end, forming a large reservoir below Fallbright. This close, he could see it well; a pair of concrete pillars forming towers, with the dam itself built out of local wood spanning the space between the towers. It was basic, placeholder construction; one day, when the local government had enough money to spare, they'd replace the wood with concrete - but that was if they ever had the money, and local governments always found "better" uses for their money than upgrading a wooden dam._

_Jayne paused, lungs and legs aching, and peered across the river, looking for anyone who could be lying in wait. The century forest grew right up to the shoreline, with the water rising over the roots and lower trunks of some of the young trees. Those had withered and died due to oversaturation, leaving bands of slender, gray stalks all along the water's edge. He saw no movement beyond the swaying of trees in the breeze, the occasional cloud of fallen leaves blowing away. Overhead, a gene-stock bird chirped a few times and took to wing._

Just because you can't see them, it doesn't mean they can't see you,_ Jayne's uncle reminded him, and he grit his teeth. They knew where he was by now; blowing up that shack had put them on his trail. Maybe if he could get to the far shore, he might be able to double back north and slip across the reservoir toward the town and get back to his ship. The marshals would be descending like hawks, but if he moved fast he could get to the ship before they locked it down._

_He nodded, and made a break for it, hurrying out of the trees with the revolver in hand._

_He got maybe twenty meters before the bullets started flying._

_Two men emerged from the forest upriver, near where the northern trail opened up. They were near the shoreline, maybe a hundred meters out, clad in all-black and firing assault rifles. The youth let out a curse and started running, ducking his head as bullets whipped past. A sudden hot flare ran up his left leg, and he yelped in startled pain from the graze, but kept running. A moving target was a harder one, and Jayne made sure he moved like piss-scared lightning. His lungs burned ever harder, and he could hear his heart in his ears, pounding away. The reports of their weapons - single shots or two-to-three round bursts, disciplined fire - echoed across the artificial lake._

_The dam drew closer, and the bullets hammered away, skipping off the rocks and smashing through the trees all around him. He waited for the sudden burst of pain, or maybe numbness, that would tell him they'd gotten their mark._

_Then his legs were pounding on wooden paneling, and he bolted for the closest concrete tower. He reached for the door, grabbed the handle and shoved._

_It was locked._

_Pain exploded up his left arm and Jayne stumbled. A cry of torment erupted from his lungs, and he reared back, raising one leg, and kicked the door with everything he had._

_It shattered around the lock, blowing inward as if he'd blasted it open with a breaching charge, and Jayne stumbled into the darkness beyond, blood pouring from the gunshot wound in his arm._

_He reached down to his belt with his free hand, and rose, mind whirling, and started pulling objects from his pouch._

_One chance. Couldn't waste it._

* * *

_"Got him!" Konstantin hissed, and started forward, running over the rough ground along the shoreline. The American followed right behind him, boots pounding on rocks and careful to avoid any muddy patches as they advanced. Magazines dropped from their weapons, and they slid fresh ammunition into their rifles._

_The American stared at the back of his companion's head as they ran, and listened to the radio chatter from the rest of the squad as they ran to catch up._

_"One, Five, I'm two minutes away!" the Syrian reported. "Six and Four are right behind me."_

_"Bullshit," the Mongol muttered. "Frenchman's pulling ahead of us. He wants this bitch."_

_"Clear the channel," Konstantin snapped. "Report when you have something to say!"_

_He normally wasn't that angry, the American noted as they got closer to the dam. But Konstantin prided himself on his team and cared about them. The fact that he'd lost one, and against a teenager, had to be hurting him._

_The boy had a head start on them already, and they couldn't run flat out on this ground, so it took them a couple of minutes to cross the distance as they picked their way across the terrain. As they got closer, the pair shouldered their weapons and slowed. Konstantin signaled that he was taking point and that the American to cover the length of the dam. He stopped and brought his heavy rifle up, sweeping the rest of the dam, while the Cossack advanced toward the dam itself._

_"Friendlies at your three," came the Syrian's voice, and distantly he could hear the remaining three moving through the century forest to his right. Konstantin murmured an acknowledgement._

_There was a brief bit of movement on the bridge, on the opposite side of the squat concrete tower that the youth had disappeared into, and the American's rifle tracked to it reflexively. He sighted the top of the boy's head as he seemed to crawl along, just visible of the lip of the low wooden railing of the top of the dam. No one else could see him from where they were; the tower blocked their view._

_His finger hovered over the trigger, but he did not fire._

_"No movement," Andy whispered into the radio, and Konstantin acknowledged._

Run_, he willed._ Get up and run, before they get too close and I have to start shooting.

_He avoided imagining just who he would shoot._

* * *

They pushed through the battered forest, weapons up. Konstantin's team of bounty hunters and mercenaries kept in a loose skirmish line, twenty meters apart, and terse communications went back and forth as they clambered through the remains of felled trees and collapsed branches. The forest was far too young to have developed the complex and treacherous root and undergrowth system that had characterized the million-year old forests of Earth that Was, but there were enough roots, broken branches, and pitfalls concealed beneath the snow to keep them cautious.

"Blood," Brayko reported over the radio, and that one word sent a jolt of excitement through the remaining troops. "I think I see tracks, too, but with how badly we humped this forest, I can't be certain."

"Blood is easier to follow," Konstantin replied. "Which way?"

"Northwest," the tracker said. "Not a lot."

"Maybe we just winged him," Voronin suggested. Brakyo grunted a negative.

"If it was a minor wound, he would have bandaged it," the tracker said. "Even if he didn't, it would take a lot of blood to soak through his clothes to spill on the snow. He wouldn't leave us a blood trail. Not that stupid."

"Keep alert," Konstantin cut in. "he'll know he's bleeding, so he knows we have his trail. You can't chase a beast forever; it will eventually turn on its pursuer."

They pushed deeper into the trees. Konstantin kept turning his eyes to the sky, and the approaching stormclouds. The leading edge was already over them, and a chill, familiar wind blew between the tree trunks. Every planet had its quirks thanks to terraforming, but the cold of an oncoming blizzard was always identifiable. Snow was already starting to drift down through the pine boughs above; the blizzard would sweep over them within a couple of hours at best, likely faster.

The smart thing to do would be to pull out and let the snow claim Cobb. But the snow drifts would hide the body, and they'd never find it after he'd frozen to death. But more importantly was the simple fact that Alexi Konstantin had not come all this way to let a storm have his vengeance.

Jayne Cobb would die, at his hands. Nothing less would be acceptable.

* * *

The wind blew through the trees, like a ghost hunting for its grave. It was still and silent in the bullet-riddled forest, the animals having scattered when the gunship and hunters had raked the area. This far away from the edge of the wood, there were no signs of the barrage that had broken the line of trees at the ridge where he had taken his first shot. The birds and ground animals had taken flight from the torrent of noise, and now it was all still and silent, save the snow drifting down from the darkening clouds overhead.

Jayne moved under the snow-covered boughs, Vera light in his hands, heart pounding in exhilaration. His blood almost sang in reflection of the hunt, and he realized he was still being poetical. Nothing like this to keep a man steeped in metaphor.

The chase had to end at some point, he knew, and brutal men with heavy weapons were close at hand. The faint, dribbling trail of red from his arm wound would lead them right to him.

He reached a tree, and then dropped to his knees in the snow. He took a sharp breath and fell on his side, displacing and mussing the frigid slush up and spreading his own blood against the white powder and the tree. He then rose, shook himself off, and pushed on, leaving the sign of his passing.

He was careful with his steps as he moved on. One long step, then a short one. One long, then one short, pressing his weight on that foot. Make sure to let a little more blood fall, just a drop here and there.

"Come on," he breathed, and he could feel a cold rawness in the back of his throat. "I'm right here. Come on and get me . . . ."

* * *

Zoë had sealed the bay doors at some point, turning the cliff face into an indistinct white wall of rock and stone and snow. Book drove toward the cleft in the cliff where the vehicle access doors were hidden and sent a burst over the radio, speaking the aforementioned code they'd set up just in case. The mule came to a halt outside the door and hovered for a minute, snow drifting around the old preacher as he waited for the acknowledgement.

Book found his fingers drumming on the controls, which surprised him, and he forced them to stop. Anxiety was not alien, but he'd always kept it under control. A Shepherd had to appear calm to the flock.

The plan, as Zoe had relayed to him over the radio, was one borne of crazed desperation. Assembling an anti-ship missile from spare parts was a backs-to-the-wall strategy, all things considered, but that lined up precisely with all their other plans of late.

It took another minute before the door hissed open, and a ten meter-wide section of the snow-covered cliff started to rise, revealing a yawning chasm beyond. Book drove inside, and as he passed from white snowfalls to dimly-lit concrete and sodium lights, the temperature shot up from below-freezing to frigid-yet-tolerable.

He found the ramp running up to the cliffside launch hangar and rode it up to the level that _Serenity _was berthed. As he pulled up the spiral ramp, he caught sight of the looming freighter, and a storm of activity directly in front of it.

He spotted Kaylee and Simon first, thanks to the twin rivers of sparks flying from the torches they were using on one of the old drones. Inara was separate, working at a couple of computer screens, brow furrowed in concentration as she worked. It took Book a moment to spot Zoë, who was sitting amid a small pile of components, one hand pressed to her ear. She and Inara seemed to be talking over the radio, but over the mule's engine and the hissing and clattering coming from where Kaylee and Simon were laboring, he couldn't hear them.

Zoë's eyes tracked up as the Shepherd brought the mule to a halt beside Serenity and debarked. She rose carefully and nodded toward him.

"Preacher," she called over the noise.

"How's it coming?' Book asked, and she grimaced.

"Kaylee and Doc finished ripping the thruster from the shuttle," she said. "Welding it down now. Wash managed to get us the transponder code on their drones, should help us home in on their ship."

Book glanced up at the freighter, but he couldn't see any damage to the attached shuttle from this angle.

"That was quick," he mused, and she nodded.

"They're motivated," Zoë replied. "Inara's got the pilot program uploading, and Wash is helping her with the transponder, but this whole thing is a kitbash. Near as likely to explode in our faces as take off."

"The warhead?" Book asked, and she shook her head.

"Need to make an anti-armor charge," she replied. "But hull plating on something like that ship makes tank armor look like paper. I can slap something together to blow up a ground vehicle, but a ship is a whole 'nother problem."

"Most ships have hulls rated for reentry and interior gunbattles," Book agreed. "They'll take something more powerful to breach their plating. Let me have a look at it."

Even as Book said those words, he had a sinking feeling in his chest, by now familiar but no less ugly for it. He was getting too accustomed to taking lives, or helping to take lives. How weak were his vows? Or rather, how strong was the necessity to sin?

"You know how to make a warhead to pierce hull plating?" she asked. He nodded slowly.

"I've had to improvise," he said, and left it at that. Zoë didn't argue; they were well past the point that Book's knowledge surprised anyone these days.

"All right, then, preacher," she said. "What do we need?"

"Conventional anti-armor explosives won't work," he said, brow furrowing in thought. "The plasma jet that can cut through vehicle armor doesn't have the velocity or heat to penetrate re-entry hulls. We need something both reactive and more energetic. Plasma projectors from a ship's engine would be a good start for power generation."

"The thrusters from Inara's shuttle work?" Zoë asked, and he frowned again.

"Possibly," he mused, and paused next to the drone. Kaylee was leaning over the open casing of the missile, welding bracing struts around the other thruster they'd pulled out of Inara's shuttle. Simon was trying to hold it in place, moving it as her orders. Despite the huge blinding goggles on the mechanic's face, Book could see a deadly concentration in the set of her jaw and mouth as she worked, matched by Simon's own grim expression.

"The other engine generates enough heat, but not explosively enough," he said. "We need high-energy reactives to both create enough thermal energy and propel shrapnel and plasma through the hull."

"Reactor fuel for the main engine?" Zoë suggested. He nodded again.

"Volatile and difficult to control, but perhaps . . . ." His head snapped up, and he nodded again, this time with certainty as he put the pieces together.

"We don't have much time, and the device is complicated," he said. "We'll need both conventional explosives and reactor fuel. There should be tungsten rods in the main engine, we can borrow some those. Should be enough. The warhead will be a two-stage device . . . ."

* * *

_Jayne struggled across the dam as fast as he could, legs pounding on the rattling wood, the roar of falling water below drowning out nearly every other sound. They were right behind him. His fingers tightened around the weapons in hand._

_He turned as he half-ran, half-crawled, and saw one of the black-clad men in the concrete tower-house on the far side of the dam, moving through the door. His revolver rose and he squeezed off a single shot. He didn't have a good sight on the killer, and the round blew a chunk of concrete from the doorway, but the man dropped back behind cover._

_Jayne surged to his feet and ran, blood pouring from his wound. Pain rolled through his body with each jolting step. He looked back, revolver rising, and fired another half-aimed shot at the doorway. The weapon rang in his fingers, trying to leap free from his grip, but he held it steady. He could hear his heart thundering over the roar of the water, and distantly, through the tunnel that was forming around his eyesight, he saw the killer point his rifle out the door and start firing blindly. The weapon howled the electronic, hollow cry of a charge-shot rifle, and bullets went flying everywhere, kicking up splinters, gouging chunks of concrete, and faintly splashing in water. Not a round hit him, but the noise and prospect of wild, lethal bullets flying his way lent him extra speed._

Blind-fire only works in close quarters_, came the voice of his uncle. _And then, only in desperation. In the open, all it serves is intimidation.

_Jayne raised his revolver again as he reached the second concrete house, and took aim._

_The next round was true. He saw something shatter as the revolver howled in his hands, and realized he had hit his enemy's weapon. The large, charged bullet hit metal and went right through, throwing shrapnel from the rifle's frame._

_Even over the steady, deafening growl of the river, he heard someone screaming and cursing in an unfamiliar language, and exultation erupted through the teenager. He whirled and stumbled into the concrete shelter, taking cover, and glanced back out._

_A bullet nearly took his head off, and he dropped back, pain arcing across his face from bits of concrete shrapnel thrown off by a round connecting less than four centimeters from his head. But in the brief glimpse, he saw another dark-clad figure emerging from the far concrete tower, advancing toward him with weapon shouldered._

_Jayne grit his teeth, closed his eyes, and his left hand squeezed around the device in his fingers. He counted to three._

One.

* * *

They were closing. His faux-limping gait was slowing him down, and he knew they were drawing near. He ran some distances through his head, based on his experience; he hadn't been through much schooling, but he could measure a man's stride in his head well enough, and he guessed he had minutes before they caught up.

Blue eyes hunted through the wood, and he found a spot. Jayne advanced, planning the next few minutes out, taking in the terrain.

He knew what to do.

The trees embraced him like a well-paid whore or a willing woman. As he settled into the snow and looming bark trunks, he thought for a few moments on the last women he'd tussled with. A couple of whores here and there, but they'd meant little more than any other. He remembered Ash, with her clever smile and dark hair, similar enough to Kaylee that they were like beers separated by a few steps of darkness and bitterness. He'd always wondered what it might have been like with her, but . . . Naw. Not her and him. Never a chance.

But really, the last woman who he'd held with a passion . . . .

It hadn't been real, had it? And of all people, it had been her. Sure, River was of age, but she was still crazy, and an extra dose of it had been circulatin' among them all that day. If he saw her again, he wasn't sure if he'd hug her or slap her, and he wondered if he'd ever meet her eyes again. But he at least wanted to see her again, if only to know which he'd pick-

Movement.

Jayne snapped back to reality. He banished thoughts of Ash, of Kaylee, and of River. He looked down the scope and went still, breathing into the cloth over his face to hide the smoking of his breath. His body tried to shiver as he lay prone in the snow, but he kept it motionless, fighting his own muscles' contractions. Without the heavy coat, it was a bitch to do, but he kept still, and the cold crept over him.

In the descending snow, the Cossack's men advanced.

* * *

_"Shitting_ hun dan_ fucking piece of-"_

_"Eloquence, my friend," the Mongol said as he slid past Konstantin, whose arm was dribbling with blood from the pieces of his broken weapon._

_"On point," the Syrian said, leading the way out the door, and the Frenchman was right behind him. The Mongol had paused beside Konstantin, looking over the wound, and shook his head._

_"Little bleeding, no problem," he said, and Konstantin cursed under his breath, drawing his sidearm._

_"Get to this little shit and kill him!" he snapped._

_"I see you," the American reported over the radio as the Syrian and Frenchman advanced. "Got you covered."_

_"Little good your cover did when he shot my weapon," Konstantin hissed._

_"The boy is suppressed," the American replied, his tone dead calm. His weapon sounded twice more. "Move up while I've got him pinned."_

_"Prepping frag," the Syrian added as he got halfway across the dam, pulling out a grenade. The Frenchman hovered over his shoulder, eyes locked on the concrete tower and weapon raised. The American put another round into the doorframe, shattering concrete. Konstantin started out onto the dam, pistol charged and raised, the Mongol just ahead. The Cossack reached up and grabbed the Mongol's shoulder, pulling him back with a quiet snarl that wouldn't be argued with, and stepped past him into the lead._

_The Syrian drew close enough to the door to toss his grenade in, and he extracted the pin._

_"Frag out," he called, depressed the spoon, and raised his arm to throw._

* * *

_He took a sharp breath._

Two.

_Jayne braced._

* * *

"He collapsed there," Brayko reported as they passed a spot where snow had been crushed into slush and blood was splashed in the powder and against a tree. "Looks like he fell, recovered, pushed himself up, and kept going."

"He'll be down soon, then," Voronin concluded, and Konstantin nodded.

"Move after him," he hissed quietly, anticipation causing his heart to beat faster. The cybernetic limbs did not shake in anticipation, but the organic ones trembled. "I will kill him, not the weather."

"He's limping," Brayko added a few moments later. "Steps are shortening. He's just ahead. Still losing blood."

"Keep your eyes open," Konstantin ordered, and they spread out, weapons high and eyes hunting. "He will go to ground ahead if he didn't simply pass out."

Konstantin remembered the last time they'd hunted this man. They pushed through the trees, spread out about ten meters apart. The Cossack could hear his heart pounding in his ears, ever louder due to the silence.

And ahead, maybe fifty meters away, in a straight line along the path of blood and limping tracks, was a dark shape. A furred hunting coat.

"I see him," Brayko whispered, and Konstantin nodded.

"Get him," he breathed. "Alive if you can. I want to put a bullet in his head myself." He paused. "Cantrella, ready an incendiary. Just in case."

"Got one ready to burn," the machinegunner murmured. Konstantin could hear the anticipation in his voice.

They prowled closer to the still form, and a sudden dread fell over him.

Yes, he remembered the decade-old hunt. And he remembered the last time they'd cornered - or _thought_ they'd cornered - Jayne Cobb. He saw it all laid out before him, in deadly, exacting detail.

The Cossack opened his mouth to warn his team.

* * *

Three.

_Jayne depressed the trigger on the detonator._

_The dam was not rated to withstand dynamite. Nor was it rated to withstand the mining explosives he'd scavenged, wired, and stuck in the corners where the floor of the dam walkway met the short wall that served as a railing. If the killers had been sweeping carefully for traps they might have spotted the innocuous fist-sized gray blocks, but Jayne and his revolver had kept their attention focused on him and not the bombs._

_He grit his teeth and curled up into a ball as the explosives set the world to shaking and purged noise from the universe for a few moments._

* * *

"Get back from the coat!" Konstantin shouted. "He's trapped it!"

Brayko, closest to the coat, froze in place, his weapon sweeping the area in front of him, and he started backward.

_He's laced the area with explosives, just like last time. We're in the killbox._

"Everyone, get back. Watch for mines or other explosives."

_It's a trap. The limp, the blood, the thrashing, he's leading us into another explosive trap. That's how he fights, with-_

"Everyone, eyes out, sweep the area," Konstantin order, and they spun around, weapons pointing outward. "He's watching us."

"I got nothing," Voronin reported.

"No explosives, no sign of anything he could have set this quickly," Brayko added.

"Cantrella, you see anything?"

Silence answered him, and Konstantin whirled toward where the machinegunner had been positioned, terror and exhilaration surging through his blood as he brought his weapon to bear on the far left end of their skirmish line.

Cantrella had died in complete silence, blood staining the snow around his slumped form. Knife wound, most likely. Looming over him was a mountain of man and muscle, swathed in mis-matched arctic camouflage and a white long-sleeved shirt, snow clinging to his broad shoulders.

_Lured us into an ambush, let us pass him. Doubled back using his own tracks. Disguised his passing somehow, maybe used the trees? Hid in the snow. Waited._

Everything ground to a slow, adrenaline-fueled moment of stillness as the two men went face-to-face. Konstantin's mind whirled as he put the pieces together, the deceptively simple ambush, built around his previous history and assumptions yet not reliant on them. He looked upon the man who had killed the Six. He was much older, those cold blue eyes were tight and narrowed but weathered. His face and head were covered by thermal cloth, but the lines were contorted in what was only a warrior's grimace.

He also saw the old heavy rifle, that familiar, hated shape, gripped in Jayne's right hand. The left was bracing Cantrella's light machinegun.

"Down!" the Cossack shouted, but the end of the word was drowned out by the two heavy weapons as they shattered the stillness of the forest under a torrent of noise and echoes and charged bullets.

* * *

Shooting from the hip was never guaranteed, and Jayne had long experience and an even longer line of dead men in his wake that proved aiming properly was the best way to put rounds on target. But he'd trained with Vera, knew the _feel_ of the old killing machine, and could put charged rounds into a man-sized target at fifteen meters. The Cossack and his boys were further away, though, and harder targets in the snow that was pouring down in ever-greater falls.

So, he humped accuracy. He didn't have time to aim, and he knew he wouldn't even when he'd driven his knife into the machinegunner's neck and stripped his weapon from him. He had surprise, shock, and a whole lot of bullets on his side, and Jayne Cobb _gorram _well used them.

The recoil from the two heavy weapons was tremendous. He could feel his bones shaking as he depressed the trigger on the machinegun, and it cut loose with a massive, ear-splitting rip of sound, like thousands of hammers beating brass drums over and over within a handspan of his ears. Even with the recoil compensators that ran half the length of the heavy automatic weapon in his left hand, the machinegun jerked in his grip, and Vera's larger, heavier rounds made the old butcher-bitch leap with every squeeze.

Tree trunks shattered, bark flying in a whirlwind of tortured wood. Snow poured off the branches overhead, shaken free as hundreds of rounds impacted with force and fury enough to tear fist-sized chunks of bark and trunk free. A cone-shaped swath of mayhem spread before him as he poured rounds into the last three bounty-hunters. He felt the moment that the belt-fed machinegun took on a life of its own, the feeding mechanism moving so fast that it became self-sustaining, a perpetual motion machine of bullets and pounding mechanical pieces that sent an uncontrolled storm of charged shots tearing through the century forest.

Then the weapon went silent, and at least one tree toppled sideways with a resounding crash of breaking wood and falling snow. Through the pouring white powder, Jayne thought he saw blood, but he also saw movement. As the tree finished hitting the ground, branches shattering with the impact, he picked out two figures rising from the snow, weapons in hand.

Jayne dropped the machinegun and ejected a magazine for Vera. He went to one knee, left hand grabbing at the dead man's belt. He rose a heartbeat later and chucked an incendiary grenade at them, and spun. His legs pounded through the snow, his heart firing as fast as the stolen machinegun, and his hands moved with mechanical thoughtlessness to slam another magazine into Vera.

Heat and light erupted behind him, and he thought he could hear a shout of raw fury through the ringing in his ears.

* * *

_Andy watched his team as the dam's top exploded all around them._

_The Syrian disappeared. That was the only way to describe it: the man was engulfed by a cloud of smoke and shrapnel, with blood and liquefied flesh and tattered clothing mixed in and launched out into the river._

_The Frenchman went down, thrown backward by the explosion, falling out of sight behind the railing. He saw the Mongol and the Cossack fall too, but they were alive as far as he could tell._

_Then a deep, dreadful cracking sound filled the air, a familiar sound that accompanied the splintering of wood. A sudden, sharp crash sounded, and one of the thick wooden trunks making up the length of the dam snapped outward, water bursting through the sudden gap._

_From there, he only heard the roar of countless tons of rushing water, the shattering of the wood holding it back, and the faint screams of his team as the floor beneath them gave way, water slamming apart parts of the dam and pouring through._

_He stared, helpless, as the dam collapsed. It didn't completely fall apart; the concrete pillars held the parts of the dam on either side up, but the center, where the four other members of the Six had been advancing, was falling apart under the destruction wrought by those simple mining explosives. The ground shook under the power of the rushing water, and through the sudden surge of liquid and shattering wood, he could see black-clad figures being swept away and thrown down twenty meters into the surging river below._

* * *

Kaylee finished unplugging the cables connecting to the guidance system, closed and sealed the panel and stepped back. The others gathered 'round and stared at the missile. It was . . .

"Kind of ugly, but functional, suppose," Zoë commented, and they nodded.

The drone had been designed to carry missiles, not be one itself. The rear section had been ripped apart and the thruster from the shuttle crudely but solidly welded in place. The warhead, a conical two-stage device that Book promised could knock a small frigate out of the sky if it hit right, was bolted onto the front, below where the sensor cluster should have been. That had been replaced by the kitbashed guidance system they'd cobbled together, keyed to the signal provided by the transponder Wash had grabbed. A small, spare short-range radar pulser and the camera from Kaylee's own vid-capture had finished up the sensors. The resulting scrapyard missile looked like an elongated, spiky cylinder with stubby wings and an oversized engine that looked like it was eating the poor drone whole.

It was adorable, in a hideous, likely-to-explode-and-kill-everyone kind of way.

"So, we gonna name it?" Kaylee asked, with a nervous smile.

"Time spent naming things can be better spent keeping me from getting shot down," Wash suggested over the radio.

"Hon, where's their ship?" Zoe asked.

"It is, ah, about- " Wash's words were cut off by a yelp and a crashing sound.

"Wash!" Zoe shouted in sudden, horrified alarm.

"_-duh fong kwong duh wai shung!_ It's shooting at me!"

"Get that thing in the air!" Zoe ordered, and they sprang into action. Inara grabbed the control datapad, while Zoe hurried to the hangar remote control box by the bay door of _Serenity_. Book rushed to the drone itself and began pushing against one of its wings, and Kaylee and Simon were a step behind him.

"Help me get this to the hangar door," he called, a bit unnecessary since they were right beside him and helping before he was finished speaking. The drone rested on a flat cart, and they pushed the heavy machine across the hangar while Zoe triggered the doors. The floor shivered as the door slid up into the ceiling, and a biting wave of cold rushed into the chamber, chased by billowing snow.

"Hold on a minute, hon," Zoe called, and Kaylee thought she could hear worry creeping into her voice. It grated against the steel in her words. "We're 'bout to launch. Just another minute."

Kaylee grit her teeth, puffing as she pushed the weighty missile across the hangar, and hoped that Wash had that long.

* * *

_The Cossack fought his way up to the surface. His lungs burned as he held his breath, fighting back desperate gasps. The water shoved him along, dragging him downstream, and something dark loomed up out of the murky, swirling clouds around him. He twisted sideways and clipped the boulder on his flank, sending a fresh spasm of pain up his side. He opened his mouth, air burst from his throat into bubbles escaping up toward the surface, and he pushed up after them with all his strength._

_He erupted from the water, the sun washing over his face, and immediately sucked down as much air as he could. He sank back down into the water in seconds but pushed back to the surface. He burst from the water again and spun around, looking for something to grab onto, and spotted a slew of saplings from the century forest, water halfway up their trunks, only a few meters to his left. He surged toward them, arms and legs pumping, and got an arm around one of the trunks._

_He held on for a moment, the water rushing past and trying to pull him away, and he gradually began pulling himself toward the new bank. He could hear the roar of the water still pouring down from the destroyed dam some distance away, and as he slogged through the muddy water, he thought he heard something buzzing in his ears over the thunder of crashing water._

_"One, repeat that," he said, pressing a finger to his ear. The waterproof radio buzzed again, then chirped._

_"This is Six," the Mongol said after a moment. "On the west shore. Maybe half a klick from the dam. The fuck happened?"_

_"Anyone still alive?" Konstantin demanded, stumbling onto the bank._

_"Four's kicking," the American reported in. "Washed up about two hundred meters down from me, One."_

_"Tough bastard," Konstantin said with a cough. He reached a dry point on the new river bank and sat down for a second, taking an unconscious inventory of his gear. The Frenchman wasn't one to let a little thing like explosives and a flood kill him. "Five?"_

_"He's ribbons," the Mongol reported, nonchalant. "Was standing right on top of those mines or whatever."_

_"Fucking," Konstantin wheezed, not concerned with finishing his curse. The spasm of hate running through him prevented that._

_The radio chirped again, and he heard the Frenchman mutter something._

_"Yeah," the Mongol agreed. "Think I saw him running northwest. Back toward the town."_

_"Four, Six," Konstantin ordered, rising again and shaking away the dizziness that accompanied the movement. "Find that fuck and put him down."_

_A grunt and a chuckle followed._

_"One, what about you and me?" the American called._

_"Two, we're going to find a way across this goddamned river and help kill that bastard," Konstantin said, and started north. "There was a footbridge north of here, yeah?"_

_"Copy that," the American replied. "I'm headed there now."_

_"Good. Let me know if you see him." He paused, and started jogging north along the edge of the river, picking his feet carefully. "Don't flake out on me again, Andy. Two men are dead thanks to him. He dies for them."_

* * *

_"Yeah," Andy answered, crossing the foot bridge. He ran the maps of the local terrain over in his head, and guessed the route the youth would take to get back to Fallbright._

_"I'll be on the bridge in about ten or twenty," he added, as he crossed the halfway point on the bridge. He had to keep his steps careful to avoid making the telltale boot-on-wood crash that would give away where he really was._

_"Keep an eye out for Four and Six," Konstantin ordered. "Help them find him."_

_"Understood," Andy replied. "Terrain is fucked up here, might take me a while," he lied._

_"Just do it," Konstantin growled._

_He reached the end of the little wooden footbridge spanning the river, and peered west. He had to find the kid fast and get him to safety. And if it came to it . . . ._

_Well, the 'verse wouldn't weep if he had to shoot the Mongol, at least._

* * *

Voronin was dead.

It hadn't been quick or clean. Two rounds had gone through his chest, perforating his lungs, and another hand blown off half his jaw. He lay thrashing and gasping for about ten seconds, the snow around him turning bright red as he churned it, until Konstantin reached him. A second's glance had been all he needed, and two bullets in the head had ended his struggles.

Konstantin turned back in the direction Cobb had fled. A couple of trees were burning thanks to the incendiary grenade, but the blaze had been contained by the snow and mounting blizzard, sending an orange glow through the descending powder. The fire had only served to blind them as Cobb escaped.

"Not again," he snarled, and started after the man. To his left, he saw the only other soldier under his command who was still alive, coming back through the snowfall.

"I don't see him," Brayko reported, and Konstantin nodded. He circled around the burning trees, and once past them, saw the clear tracks that Cobb had left as he charged away through the snow.

"He can't escape," Konstantin growled, and trudged through the snow. The hate in him was beating against his skull, his heart pounding savagely enough that he could see little black spots on in his vision.

_Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him._

"Boss," Brayko called. "Hold up!'

Konstantin slowed a bit, glancing back at the tracker, who was a dozen steps behind and a good ten meters to his left. His rifle was in hand, but it was drooping and not at the ready.

"Boss, this a smart choice or not?" he asked, and Konstantin blinked.

"What?"

"We started with five men, now it's just the two of us," Brayko said. He shrugged, barely visible in the pouring snow.

"Your fucking point?" Konstantin asked, new anger mounting to compete with the boiling hate that was making it hard to see. Harder, with the snowfall, at least.

"I'm not getting paid to die hunting this bastard," Brayko said. "Call the ship back, get some more men. He's won. We don't need to-"

Konstantin shot him in the mouth.

Brayko fell into the snow, like a dropped puppet, the back of his head blown open. Konstantin stared at the corpse, quickly being buried under the snow, and waited for his anger - at Cobb, at Brayko, at everything - to subside.

It didn't. After a few moments, the Cossack spun back around, hissing under his breath as he followed the tracks.

_Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him._

* * *

_Jayne ran through the forest, limping and bleeding and his ears ringing, clutching the nearly-empty revolver in his right hand. His head was swimming and pounding, and his legs felt like rubber._

_He stopped, panting, and leaned against a tree. Blood dribbled down from the wound in his arm. After a moment, he pushed off and started west again, or at least the best guess as to which way it was in these woods._

_Just get back to the ship, he told himself. Get back to town, get to the ship, and get the hell off this rock and leave these crazy killers behind-_

_He stumbled sideways, his left leg going numb as if someone had kicked him in the thigh with a steel toed boot. He dropped to one knee, and looked down at his leg. He could hear the echo of a gunshot somewhere in the distance, over the roaring water._

_Blood poured out of a small bullet hole in his thigh. He blinked, staring at it for a moment, and then the pain kicked in. He hissed, then cried out in agony. In the back of his mind, some rational, cold-blooded part of him noted that the blood wasn't that bad, so the shot had to have missed any major blood vessels, otherwise he'd be dead in minutes from bleeding out. The rest of him reacted to the pain and the attack with animalistic desperation, and he tried to stand and run from whoever had just shot him._

_He rose and stumbled forward into a half-walk, half-fall, and pushed through the forest. The enemy were behind him, somewhere close. Adrenaline dulled the new pain in his leg, and he pushed on, crashing through the woods, wondering when the next shot would cut through him. Would it be in the other arm? The leg again? Through his heart, ending this whole pile of _luh suh_?_

_Something burst through the trees to his left, and he spun, raising the revolver. He twisted on the wounded leg, and the pain nearly blinded him. He gasped and stumbled, turning his pivot into an awkward, graceless tumble to the leaf-strewn dirt. Jayne thrashed, pushing himself up, starting to raise his weapon and find whoever it was that was coming after him._

_A boot slammed down onto his wrist, pinning his gun hand to the dirt. A shadow loomed overhead, blotting out the sun filtering between the leaves overhead, and a rifle's barrel pointed down at his nose._

_"Good chase, kid," muttered a quiet, amused voice, with an accent he couldn't immediately place. The boot pressed harder on his wrist, and he found his hand going numb. The revolver fell from slackening fingers._

_"You're a tough little bastard, I'll give you that," he added. "Gustav winged you, but that bomb on the dam hurt him bad enough to leave him at a limp. So here we are. You, me, and several interesting iterations of knife. Let's get to know each other, eh?"_

_The Mongol's boot then rose and shot down into Jayne's face._

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_**_ This story remains one of the biggest challenges for me to write, simply because of how character oriented it is. Between Jayne, Serenity's crew, the Six, and Konstantin's current crew, there's a lot of characters to juggle, and many of them are OCs. Though I've been killing them off with aplomb, so that's speeding things up. Another issue is making sure all my details sync up, because there's a lot of little ones. One good aspect of online publishing like this is that tiny plot holes that crop up in sequential chapter-writing are very easy to fix, and with the gulf of time between each chapter, I lose small details and have to fine-comb my way through the chapters to make sure the little stuff syncs up. Minor stuff like small physical injuries, ammunition, how many radios someone is carrying, and so on need to be detailed, especially in a story like this where characters are fighting in drawn-out, personal struggles where a radio or bullet or small injury could make the difference. The logistics of writing this kind of story are surprisingly complex!_

_The next couple of chapters should be up comparatively fast, though, as very few OCs are still alive and the number will dwindle fast._

_Until next chapter . . . ._


	71. Chapter Five: The Two

_**Chapter Five: The Two**_

Wash dove and juked and dodged, and periodically added in a manly scream of terror.

The shuttle wasn't an atmo-fighter or interceptor. It was an oversized taxi the size of a small apartment, and had all the maneuverability of a rock launched by a backyard catapult. _Serenity _was far more maneuverable, and while the mercs' ship was not as agile as a Firefly, it was heavily-armed, as the constant pings of its targeting radars kept reporting, and the bursts of cannon fire whipping past the shuttle testified to its crew's intentions regarding the wallowing whale that was his shuttle.

Faced with that, Wash spat in the face of his shuttle specs, and made that flying boulder _dance_.

"Come on! Can't hit me? Can't hit me, can you?"

Wash knew his taunts weren't reaching his pursuers, but he didn't care. He hugged the ground, the underside of the shuttle tearing the tops off of trees, while the freighter loomed overhead, tracking him with chin-mounted guns and trying to perforate him. The gunfire tore trees in half and sent gouts of slushy snow rising up in the air. The forest toppled in a swathe behind him as he kept jerking the shuttle back and forth, throwing off incoming fire.

He checked the terrain plot, and swung the shuttle around. The landscape around here was littered with cliffs, canyons, and mountains amid the forest-strewn hills, and while the escapade on Aberdeen had taught him that the canyons didn't let one evade being followed, he didn't need to break contact. He just needed to break enemy line of sight enough to shield himself from incoming fire.

He reached one of the abrupt cliffs and dove over it, howling in excitement as he escaped the enemy ship's sights for a moment, and whipped the shuttle around to follow the canyon. He gunned the engine and shot forward toward a break in the canyon. He rolled the shuttle up on its side and began to change the direction it pointed, cutting thrust while keeping the antigravity running. A couple of seconds later the enemy ship appeared overhead, but he'd reached the break, with the shuttle pointing down the next canyon, and he fired the engines. Bullets tore past where his shuttle had been an instant previously, gouging man-sized holes in the blank gray stone.

"Whoo! Upgrade your targeting, _niao se du doo-gway_!" he shouted, heart pounding with sheer panic. The mercenary freighter sidled to the side overhead, looking for a better line of fire. Wash checked the terrain plot again and spotted a steep, sheer cliff ahead with another canyon running parallel to this one, and more mountains beyond.

Just as the freighter started to get high enough to fire down into the canyon at him, he jumped the shuttle up over the lip and launched it at the rising cliff ahead, swinging behind it and using it as shield. Frustrated gunfire chased him behind the cliff, and he charged toward the next canyon. He cut thrust as he got close, spinning the shuttle around and coasting in on antigrav drive like a particularly slippery hockey puck, and dropped into the dip right as the freighter spotted him again. More cannon fire laced the rock and snow overhead.

The terrain-hugging game of high-caliber-weaponry cat and floral print shirt-wearing mouse continued.

* * *

"_Heh, good news," Andy's radio chirped. It was Konstantin, and he sounded amused, albeit grimly._

"_Yeah?"_

"_Mongol's got him," the Cossack said, and the bottom fell out of the American's stomach. "He's hauling the little bastard up to a cabin we spotted flying over before. Says he'll sit on the kid until I can get there."_

_Andy nodded, murmuring in acknowledgement._

"_Where's the cabin at?" he asked._

"_Half a klick past the river. Little logging trail leads up to it. You can't miss it. We'll link up there and I'll put a bullet in this fuck's head."_

"_On my way, I'll meet you there," Andy said, keeping his voice level._

_He closed the link, heart pounded, and broke into as full a run as he dared in these woods._

_The Mongol had the boy. Jesus Christ._

* * *

The blizzard was getting so intense that he could barely see twenty meters in front of him.

But Jayne was bleeding for serious this time, and the snow didn't cover the blood and his tracks. Not fast enough.

He'd heard the last two men arguing, thick Russian accent obscuring one man's words, while the Cossack's were slurred by hate. There'd been a gunshot and the argument had ended. He didn't need to wonder who'd taken then shot. He remembered the kind of hate the Cossack had shown back in that cabin, and time just made that sort of wound fester.

Jayne stopped, leaning against a tree, snow flying into his face and cold boring into him now that he wasn't wearing his coat anymore. He breathed for a few moments, then turned to look behind him, trying to see through the downpour. The dark trunks of the century forest rose around him, sheets of pouring snow falling among them. Beyond thirty meters it turned into a hazy white wall.

The bark cracked three centimeters to his right, tossing splinters into his face. He dropped to a knee, snapping Vera up to his shoulder as the echoes to the rifle's report sounded.

There was fear. There was always fear, and getting shot at, especially from a source you couldn't see, was utterly terrifying. But unlike the panicky kid he'd been when the Six had come for him, Jayne had mastered his fear. He caught some movement maybe forty meters away: a white irregularity, about man-sized, running through the trees laterally to his position. In a smooth motion, hands as still as steel, he sighted the movement and fired.

Vera howled in his ear, the old rifle pounding his shoulder with the old, familiar pain.

* * *

The round tore through the Cossack's backpack, spinning him around. Konstantin snarled, twisting as he fell, and turned the momentum behind the massive, heavy round into a spinning crouch. He brought his own rifle to his shoulder.

_Kill kill kill him kill him_

Jayne knelt next to the tree forty meters away, _that gorram gun _at his shoulder and lining up another shot. Konstantin's weapon went up, the reflex dot sight on his weapon snapping to Jayne's chest.

They didn't fire at the exact same time; Jayne's rifle had already been trained on the Cossack, but he had no goggles, so his sight was skewed. The Cossack had a perfect view of Jayne through his snow goggles, but he was still bringing his weapon up when the old rifle roared its battle cry.

Konstantin's cybernetic arm exploded at the elbow.

His own shot was thrown off by the massive bullet tearing through the limb, hurling shards of ceramic and plastic and metal in every direction, but he had squeezed the trigger even as the bullet punched through his arm.

His aim was true, though, and he knew he'd hit Jayne even as his arm flew apart.

* * *

Vera died in Jayne's hands.

The round impacted the old Callahan just above the trigger group. It penetrated the old rifle, but the impact skewed its flight path, and the round slammed into his flank, spinning Jayne around and back against the tree.

There was no time for shock or disbelief. Jayne released Vera, letting the old butcher-bitch hang from her strap, and snapped up Boo. He surged up to his feet, drawing the revolver and ignoring the agony rolling up his flank. The shape ahead was lurching to its feet, and he could see something was wrong with the Cossack. The white shape in the downpour was different, proportions off. It took him a second to place why, until he saw something metallic in the snow next to the stumbling shape.

Holy crap, he'd blown the bastard's metal arm off.

Boo rose in his hands, and he sighted down the revolver's length. The red dot settled over the running shape, and he fired two shots.

* * *

Rounds whizzed past Konstantin, and he drew his own sidearm, a heavy autoloader. He spun toward Jayne as he scrambled forward, ignoring his ruined arm and the useless rifle still clutched in its grip. He returned fire, a couple of wild and barely-aimed shots, and saw Jayne drop back to his knees. His rifle hung low from its strap, and he was holding a revolver now. Blood poured freely from his side.

Jayne scrambled around behind the tree, and Konstantin squeezed off another resounding shot. The tree shuddered from the impact, bark flying, but Jayne managed to get the trunk between them. He leaned out, revolver rising, and Konstantin ducked behind another thick wooden pillar. The bark exploded a few centimeters away, peppering him with bits of wood.

They hadn't traded many shots. The only reason Jayne would have dropped the big rifle would be if Konstantin had hit it with his own bullet.

His face contorted into a half-grin, half-grimace. He'd wounded Jayne and killed that damned weapon. He glanced down at his cybernetic hand, dead in the snow beside him. There was that much, at least.

He leaned out and fired off another shot.

* * *

_Jayne's eyes jerked open, and he lurched back. The stink of a freshly treated pool smacked him back into consciousness, and a swirling, drunken haze and disorientation smashed into him. It was chased a blink later by the more conventional cracking pain of hitting the back of his head against something hard and wooden._

_He blinked, eyes questing around, and he found himself in a wooden room, what looked like a small cabin. Woodcutting tools hung on one wall, which was made of planks of local wood, slightly worn and rotten. A couple of glass windows let light in, and there was a door to the left, hanging loose, the lock shot off._

_The man who had shot it loomed over him._

"_Mornin', sunshine," he said with a grin. Teeth, faintly yellowed, gleamed down from his smile._

_Jayne tried to suppress a shudder at that face. He'd heard plenty of tales of psychos, but he wasn't prepared to be face-to-face with one, and that grin proved that he was looking right at a crazed lunatic._

"_You're still waking up," the Mongolian-looking psycho said in a nonchalant tone, "but we don't have much time. Cossack's gonna kill you the second he sees you. Blew up two of his men, so he's righteously pissed."_

"_What?" Jayne managed to blurt out, as the man stood. He put away the vial of what had to be smelling salts, and went over to a combat backpack laying by the door._

"_Oh, right, you don't know, do you?" he asked, rummaging through the bag. "You have no idea who we are or why we're here, do you?"_

"_Killed some folks on the last job," Jayne said, getting his equilibrium back. He tried standing, only to belatedly realize his hands were nearly numb and locked behind his back. His feet weren't tied, but he knew he couldn't get up without making enough noise to warn the lunatic only a few meters away._

"_One of whom was the relation of a very rich and very angry man," the Mongol replied. He took out a couple of things: a long wire, and what looked like a soldering iron, and set them on the wooden floor beside him. "Rich enough to hire six very well-armed mercenaries to kill your crew." He looked over his shoulder and grinned. "And you did what twenty federal marshals from Boros with full tactical gear, a gunship, and grenade launchers couldn't: You killed two of the Six Rifles."_

_The bottom of Jayne's stomach opened at those words._

_The Six _gorram _Rifles? The legendary mercenary team? Those men had been the ones trying to kill him._

_Holy hell._

"_I guess the rest underestimated you," the Mongol said. "The Brit and the Frenchman never expected that firebomb, and none of us sure as hell expected you'd blow up a dam with us on it. You exploded the damned Syrian to ribbons. Going to be hell patching up all the other pain you've inflicted without him."_

_He picked up the wire and walked back toward Jayne._

"_But all good things come to an end. You've got my respect, kid. But the Cossack, he's going to kill you, and for once, I think he hates you enough that I don't think he'll mind if I get some indulgences in."_

_He leaned down, grabbed Jayne by the shoulder, and dragged the youth into the center of the cabin. He threw the teenager down on the floor and jammed a boot into his back._

_A moment later the garrote wrapped around Jayne's neck, and the Mongol squeezed._

"_Too bad you're not a woman," the Mongol muttered into Jayne's ear as he pulled the wire tight, and pain dug into the teenager's throat. "But at least I can see how long I can keep you conscious, kid. Let's draw it out, shall we?"_

_Jayne gasped for air, pain rolling up his neck and into his head, and distantly he could hear the psychopath humming._

* * *

The hangar door locked in place, frigid wind sweeping in and spraying snow from the oncoming blizzard across the deck. Kaylee shielded her eyes from the sharp, chill wind as she took cover behind the half-repaired power loader.

"Deck is clear!" she called into the radio. Her fingers tightened over the launch controls. The rest of the crew were inside Serenity, but someone had to be out on the deck to make sure it was clear before launch.

And, to be honest, she really wanted to see how her ugly, adorable little missile was going to do.

"Kaylee, I'm getting sensor data from the missile," Inara reported. "Okay, it looks good. Wash?"

"Anytime you want to - whoa! Close! He's getting better! Yeah, transmitting. Blow him up! Please!"

Kaylee triggered the launch sequence, pressing the first trigger on the remote, and the missile began to rattle. Its engines spun up in a low whine that rapidly gained in speed, volume, and pitch. She shielded her eyes, watching the drone's body and machinery for any telltale problems. Maybe they hadn't welded it properly, or one of the fuel feeds was improperly connected. There wasn't time to stress test it, and she had to slap it together half on intuition and half on raw experience, so-

The engine reached full power, with no obvious problems. She took a sharp, frigid breath, finger hovering over the second trigger.

"Inara, ready!"

"Kaylee, I have control. Release it when ready!"

"Release in three . . . Two . . . One!"

She pressed the second trigger, and the makeshift clamps released. The missile launched instantly, tearing out of the hangar. Inara gasped over the radio, and Kaylee's chest tightened. If the guidance technology wasn't up to snuff, all this would have meant nothing.

The missile shot straight out of the hangar, flying like an arrow, screaming toward a cliff face two kilometers away.

It dipped slightly, then suddenly shot up, before curving and banking out of sight.

"I've got it!" Inara called. "Piloting program is working!"

A cheer escaped her chest, and Kaylee jumped up and down, pumping her fists. It worked! Their crazy, scrapyard aircraft missile worked!

* * *

Wash banked and dove, juking and weaving to avoid the turret fire from the enemy freighter as it trundled after him. They'd passed the canyons, and now cover was getting more scarce. He was forced to do more unconventional tricks. He didn't know what sensors the freighter was packing, so he used a blanket pile of impromptu countermeasures, adjusting engine settings to generate a wide, spreading cloud of heated smoke behind the shuttle while diving low to hug the ground. It would kill engine efficiency and require maintenance immediately when he got back, if he didn't fall out of the sky on the way, but it was better than getting shot down.

It worked, though; the freighter didn't seem to have a precise fix on his ship, as it fired wildly into the obscuring cloud. Shots came close plenty of times, and several deflected off the hull - taking several weeks off Wash's expected lifespan each time - but none scored a direct hit.

Then the best news ever came.

"Missile is on the way, hon!" Zoe called. "Give us just a couple of minutes to get to you!"

"I copy that, baby," he replied. He wanted to make a joke, but another close shave bounced off the hull, and any wit died in his throat.

_Leaf on the wind, leaf on the wind, leaf on the wind . . . ._

He heard the impact of a treetop on the bottom of the shuttle's hull, and jerked at the noise. Wash's eyes flicked over the sensors, checking the enemy ship, and-

Was that a fire on the ground?

He juked and weaved on mental autopilot while peering at the thermal scopes. Yes, that was a small fire maybe twenty kilometers away, and two more contacts another kilometer beyond. Tiny flickers of thermal readings appeared and faded from both of them.

Gunfire.

Jayne.

Many men would have debated whether to act on that information or worry about themselves. Hoban Washburne was not many men. Whether heroic or stupid - or both - he didn't stop to think.

"I've got Jayne on my scope!" Wash yelled over the radio, and changed course toward the fire and the two men shooting at each other. "I'm headed after him!"

"Wash, what about the-"

"Kill it fast," Wash called back, his voice shifting to a hardness that startled even him. The fear that had been fueling him before was still there, but a wall of determination had suddenly come down out of nowhere and blocked it off. "I think he needs backup."

* * *

"_People don't realize," the Mongol muttered, "How _painful _it is to be choked out. Blood expands in the brain, causing a headache that makes the worst migraines seem like a vacation. I can't even imagine how painful it is to get killed by hanging. At least, assuming you don't break your neck when you fall."_

_The worst part wasn't the pain beating against his skull, but the _monologue_. The Mongol jabbered on and on as he choked Jayne, periodically releasing the pressure just enough to let him inhale, before pulling again. When he wasn't waxing on about torture, the Mongol hummed quietly, barely audible in Jayne's ear._

_Someone grunted from the direction of the door and the Mongol released Jayne. He flopped to the floor, gasping for breath._

"_What? You want in on this? Get a knife, Gustav. Once the Cossack gets here the fun's going to be over."_

_An angry grunt, and the cocking of a rifle bolt. Jayne kept gasping for sweet air to fill his burning lungs, the agony in his head fading, until a hand grabbed him and hauled him up. A second man stood in the doorway, a nondescript figure whose face was twisted into hard hatred. Jayne could see his black clothes were burned, and a livid, fresh burn mark marred one side of his neck and stretching over his ear._

"_Jayne Cobb, this is the Frenchman, Gustav," the Mongol said, tone cheerful. "You killed his gay lover, so he hates you only slightly less than the Cossack."_

_The Frenchman's angry eyes turned toward the Mongol, who chuckled._

"_Okay, okay, maybe not lovers. But you and the Brit were pretty close, right? And you want to carve your initials into his chest for blowing him up and shooting him dead, don't you?"_

_The Frenchman grunted again, shaking his head._

"_You people just don't do good revenge, do you?" the Mongol muttered, his tone pouty. "Just professional shooting and killing cleanly."_

_The Frenchman grunted again, mubed for a moment, and glanced to the Mongol's toolbag._

"_Oh, so you'll just put up with someone else torturing the kid. You're too high and mighty to actually cut him yourself, but if someone else does it, it's fine." The Mongol walked across the room, scooping up his bag and the soldering iron. He rummaged around inside it and took out a long, wicked knife, curved at the tip and with a blood groove._

_The Frenchman snarled angrily, shaking his head, and stepped outside._

"_Fine, fine. I'll do it all. You can listen!" The Mongol crouched in front of Jayne, expression pensive. "People. They'll rant at you for just being honest about what you do, and pretend they don't want to be on the same level as you. Being honest nets you nothing, these days."_

"_Fucking crazy," Jayne managed to gasp out, and the Mongol nodded emphatically._

"_Yep! See there? Honesty!" He hauled Jayne back up to a sitting position, and grabbed him by the top of his hair with his free hand. "So, we're going to be honest here. I don't just like pain. I like fear. Pure, unbridled terror. Last time I raped a woman, I actually left her tied up, alone, for three whole hours before I got down to it. That was fun. Should have seen her reaction when I took out the pliers. Seeing that kind of terror was intoxicating, you know? But I don't have time here, so I'm just going to cut you a bit."_

_Jayne's eyes widened, and the Mongol giggled._

"_See! That's what I like! You're not so beat up that you don't feel it! And pain, my friend, pain is the scariest thing there is. Nothing, nothing is more frightening than pain." He poked the knife into Jayne's shoulder, a prick of agony starting there. The boy hissed, gritting his teeth, blood flowing from the wound, and tried to keep from screaming as the Mongol started to draw the tip down through his shirt and across his chest._

"_The anticipation is worse than the application," he said, and frowned. "I think I'll take an ear, before I let the Cossack-"_

_Two gunshots sounded outside, rapid and loud, and the Mongol spun around, dropping his knife._

_The Frenchman lay outside, howling in agony from a pair of bullets in his legs, and another black-clad figure strode into the room, pistol in hand, eyes hard behind his balaclava._

"_The fuck are you do-"_

_The American shot the Mongol four times in the chest._

* * *

The pain was getting worse. The wounds were burning and weeping blood, his feet were shuffling through the ice and slush and snow, and his lungs ached with exertion as he ran as fast as he could through the trees. Cold nipped at his extremities. Jayne could feel himself getting weaker.

But the pain was distant. At least, the physical pain.

Vera was gone.

Maybe he could fix the murder machine, but that didn't change the pain - the same pain when that stupid mudder had taken that bullet for him. The same pain when he'd seen Kaylee hurt, or River had taken another shot for him.

Too many _gorram _people getting hurt because of him. Hurt _for _him.

His lungs burned, and he sucked in breath as he ducked between trees, pushing through the blizzard.

The Cossack had killed Vera. Just like he'd killed-

Jayne burst through the trees, and found himself running through a clearing. His heart pounding, he pushed forward, running through the snow even faster. Out here, he was in the open. He was vulnerable. He thought he could hear the man closing in behind him, a hound running down his prey.

Cover. If he could find cover, he could return fire.

Then the Cossack shot him in the calf.

Jayne went down, the white surging up to slug him in the chest and face.

* * *

_Andy chose the pistol over the rifle. Gustav stood outside the door to the cabin, and even battered as the Frenchman was, he had keen eyes and sharp reflexes. It would take too long to bring up the rifle in close, and he needed to get inside before the Mongol reacted. Plus, if he shot Gustav with the rifle, he'd blow off limbs at the very least, and the Frenchman . . . Well, he didn't want to kill him if he could avoid it. Professional courtesy._

_Thus, he'd walked up to Gustav, nodded to him, and used his body to hide the act of drawing his sidearm until he was nearly past the Frenchman. Then he shot him in the knees with two quick taps._

_The Mongol's reaction was the expected surprise, which let Andy rush in, pistol leveled, both hands steadying the weapon, and put four shots into center mass._

_Crazy bastard wasn't an idiot. He was still wearing his armor, and the pistol wouldn't penetrate it. The rounds did blow the breath out of him, and Andy put two more into his chest as he fell backwards to his knees. Blood splattered the floor; at least one round penetrated, but probably not fatally. The pistol's slide clicked back: empty._

_Just to be sure, Andy kicked the Mongol in the face with a full-on, thrusting forward kick that centered the boot on the psycho's nose._

_The Mongol flopped backward and went still, groaning and gasping._

_The boy was kneeling, blood running down his chest, eyes shocked and bewildered. He stared up at Andy as he moved swiftly, not even bothering to reload. He crouched beside Jayne, dropping the pistol back into its holster and drawing his knife._

"_Easy, easy," he reassured the kid. "Let me get these off. Can you run?"_

"_Yeah," Jayne grunted, and he looked up at the masked American as he cut off the zip-tie binding the boy's wrists. No shock there. He had to recognize the voice, but there was no time to clarify things._

_Andy got the tie off, and grabbed a couple of bandages from his pouch as the boy flexed his fingers. He wrapped up the gauze and got some tape out, and quickly padded the knife cut in his chest and wrapped it with tape. It was immediate, meatball first aid, and he didn't even have time to cut open the shirt or clean the wound. They had to move-_

"_The fuck is-"_

_Andy shot to his feet, bringing up the rifle, right as Konstantin stormed into the room, tattooed face twisted up in disbelief, his own assault rifle rising up to point at the American._

_Andy stared down the sights of his rifle at his friend's face, and tried to pull the trigger._

_Once again, he hesitated._

* * *

Inara set her jaw, focusing on the screen. The world around her melted away, and dimmed down to just the flatscreen in front of her and the simple controls at her fingertips. Meditation, focus, and control of the senses were among the skills a Companion trained for, and she slid into a fugue state as she flew, her whole world centering around that image and the controls.

There was nothing else. Not _Serenity_. Not her pain. Not the disease. Not even Mal. She had no space for them.

The missile flew differently from the shuttle. Faster, more agile. But sluggish in its own way, loose controls. A bad combination. No - a _difficult _combination. There was a difference.

Snow-swathed terrain flew past, the air thick with white powder, blocking her sight. The rest of the sensors showed her the terrain, and the distant heat sources and the point of origin of the transmitter signal that wash was bouncing to her.

Inara closed in. The target grew with uncanny swiftness.

It saw her. The thermal profile shifted slightly.

She evaded. The skillset was the same: read intention, determine best way to maneuver around the target, and come at the resistance from a different angle. Whether piloting, socializing, or copulating, it was all the same. Read, adjust, attack.

The ship opened fire, but she was already ascending, jumping over the ship and weaving around. It started to turn, to bring its guns to bear on the swift missile, but she brought it back around, accelerating.

He finger brushed the arming switch, and the warhead went live.

Inara guided the missile in, and the freighter swung aside, trying to escape.

It didn't.

The display went dark, and she exhaled.

The world around her erupted into cheers, and she let the exultation run through her.

* * *

Konstantin strode forward, ignoring the snow whipping him the face. He'd seen Jayne go down. He knew where he was, even if he'd fallen out of sight.

"I have you," he breathed, the knife-like wind cutting through his mouth as he trudged, heart pounding. It had been too long. Years. Decades.

_You watching, Andy? _Konstantin thought. _This is for you, you motherfucker._

His breath quickened. Ahead, a dark, fallen form in the snow. Pushing itself up, crawling forward with the mindless determination of the damned.

Something exploded overhead, and he spun, looking up. He saw a flare of light in the storm above, through the blanket of white, and then something falling out of the clouds, burning and hemorrhaging debris. He stared up at it, his stomach falling out.

Konstantin recognized the nose and the bulbous cargo compartment, even while ablaze and flying apart.

They'd killed the _Gorram Gun._

Something roared overhead, brushing aside the howl of the blizzard and drowning out the scream that tore out of his throat. Blazing fury nearly blinded him as he cried out, and he spun around, surging toward Jayne.

They took his ship, but if he could just kill this prick, it would be alright. He could rebuild, and he'd start on top of Jayne Cobb's corpse. His pistol rose, shaking in hands trembling from far worse things than the cold.

Then a wall of rumbling, gray ship-hull dropped between them, and Konstantin screamed again. Snow flew up in a second blizzard around the shuttle as it denied him his prize, and he started firing, outrage commanding his fingers and pushing him further.

"No! No, no nononono!"

* * *

"_What the shit, Andy?" demanded the Cossack, barrel of his rifle wavering in pure rage. The Mongol groaned as he flopped across the floor toward his pistol._

"_Alexi, put it down," the American said, his voice strangely quiet. The barrel of his rifle was unmoving. Jayne crouched, frozen, as the two men stood off._

"_The fuck are you doing?" the Cossack snarled, voice twisted in disbelief and hate. "He killed two of us! You're betraying us for this shit? This criminal fuck! What the hell is wrong with you!"_

"_Yeah," the American murmured, almost to himself. "Guess so."_

_No more hesitation._

_He squeezed the trigger. The Cossack must have seen it coming in his body language, because his weapon barked first, a split second before, and Andy jerked as three rounds punched through him. The single shot from his rifle hit the Cossack in the upper right arm, and the massive round blew it off from the elbow._

_Both men went down screaming. Jayne jumped forward, grabbing his rescuer as he hit the floor, while the Cossack slammed to the wooden planks and rolled over, blood erupting from his arm. He scrabbled at his sidearm with his left hand and dragged it out._

_Through the mixture of numbness and pain rolling through his body, the American saw the Cossack pulling out his weapon, and even as the boy started pulling him across the floor, he brought up his heavy rifle and fire again. It wasn't a perfect shot, and the bullet sank into Konstantin's leg, blowing out blood and meat on the other side, and he howled again. The Cossack thrashed on the floor as the boy lifted Andy and hauled him out of the cabin._

_A wide streak of blood marked their passing._

_He stared back at Konstantin as the Cossack tried pushing himself up, eyes boiling with pure hate. Andy's free hand fumbled up at the balaclava over his face and started pulling it up. He grunted under his breath as they thumped down the steps, the boy - Jayne, dammit, not a boy - saying something while trying to pull him away._

_His fingers hooked under the balaclava's edge and he peeled it away with a sudden surge of strength. Cool air brushed his face, and he exhaled._

_No pain. That was a very bad sign. And so much blood. _

_The Cossack's hateful eyes met his, and Andy managed a smile back at him._

"_Sorry, Konstantin," he breathed._

* * *

_Jayne . . . _

The cold was pouring in, flooding him. The agony rolling up his leg, across his body, and in his heart was too much, even for him. He felt a heat in his chest from the icy air, and something else on his face.

He was weeping.

_Jayne, I ain't askin'!_

He tried to rise, and fell back to the snow. Light burned overhead, and he thought he could hear a bestial howl above. Dragons or demons or angels, he didn't know. Dammit, he didn't want to know.

He just wanted to fall down and sleep.

_. . . Worth a lot of money . . . ._

A girl, bleeding on dirty deck plates, or roads, or wooden cabins. A woman laughing, hugging him and whispering naughty things. A man bleeding all over him as he carried him on his shoulder, shouting into his ears. A rifle, heavy and reassuring in his fingers, beating on his shoulder.

_Did it to _me_, Jayne. And that's a fact._

Cold blue eyes on the other side of an airlock. Howling beasts refusing to die even under machinegun fire. Iron hands grabbing his manhood and squeezing. A dying preacher, a doctor struggling to save him against all odds. Dead eyes, lighting with emotion as he stabbed a scalpel into a throat. A man's scope exploding as a round went through his eye. A blood-soaked girl staring at him with agonized eyes down a hallway.

_Jayne!_

A voice. A man, associated with it. Blond hair, a smile, and words and tone that made no sense, that didn't belong to him.

"Jayne!"

Engines. Snow flying. Someone screaming at him.

A man long dead reached down with a hand that he didn't remember was so clean. His eyebrows raised, questioning.

_Live or die, Jayne?_

* * *

_The campfire burning, the flammable bricks casting strange colors around the campsite. A man sat across from him at the fire, cutting a piece of meat off the cooking slab of venison. He couldn't see his face, but he could hear his voice._

"_Live or die, Jayne. You make that decision whenever you enter combat. It seems easy, but when the darkest moment comes, when you lie there bleeding on the ground, you'll find yourself with a question. Die, and end the pain, or live and continue with it?"_

_He cut the piece of meat free and handed it to the boy._

"_You can choose to die. There's nothing wrong with it. But only make that choice if you're sure that you lived a good life, and you have no regrets. Otherwise, fight. To the bloody end, to protect those you love, to protect the man next to you, fight. Even if all the world stands against you, fight if there's a reason to. Sell your death at a high price, nephew. Only give it if there's nothing left for you to spend your life on."_

_He chewed the meat, staring at the fire, and thought long and hard into the night._

* * *

Jayne looked up at the man over him, hand extended, and closed his eyes.

Not yet.

He pushed himself up, and thought he could see the man nodding in approval, even with his eyes squeezed shut.

"Jayne!"

Wash. He twisted around, ignoring the pain, and saw the shuttle, not five meters away, door hanging open.

Jayne threw himself at salvation.

* * *

_Jayne's heart thundered a thousand rounds a minute as he dragged his rescuer out of the cabin. The man was saying something quietly, in that maddeningly familiar voice._

"_Stop," he gasped as Jayne got him into the trees. Jayne hesitated, still pulling the heavy man, and he spoke up again, more forcefully. "Goddammit, Jayne, put me down!"_

_Jayne froze, more at the tone and the familiar voice than at the order, and he set the man down. His heart beat even faster at the realization, and he found himself begging for his sudden, horrified suspicion to not be true._

_The American settled down on the soil, blood pooling around him, and Jayne looked into his rescuer's face._

"_Oh, hell," he whispered. "This is gotta be a bad dream. It's gotta be a dream. No . . . ."_

_His rescuer lifted his gun arm, and shoved the rifle at Jayne. The youth's trembling fingers took the weapon. It was heavy - heavier than he expected, but the weight was reassuring. The man's hands fumbled over his vest, pulling out a couple of magazines. His fingers were dirty and bloody, but they moved with practiced precision despite the lake of blood rolling out beneath them. He pushed the magazines up at Jayne, and the youth took them in trembling, dirty fingers, stuffing them into his pockets._

_He didn't say anything. Jayne wondered if he had the breath to speak, but his eyes told him everything he needed to say anyway. Jayne's own eyes were burning, and he shook as he knelt over the dying man._

_A rifle shot broke the stillness, a round screaming past him, and Jayne spun, bringing the heavy rifle up to his shoulder. He was unfamiliar with it, and it rose awkwardly, but not as much as he thought it would. He jerked the weapon toward the gunfire._

_A black-clad figure limped toward them, his face contorted in fury. The Frenchman, Gustav. Despite gunshot wounds to the _gorram _knees, burns, shrapnel injuries, and being thrown off an exploding dam, he was still standing and still coming at them, rifle shouldered in twitching hands. Blood poured down his wobbling legs, but he didn't seem to give a damn. He raised the weapon, lining up another shot._

_Jayne centered the man's chest in the Callahan's scope, and pulled the trigger._

_The beast's roar was deafening this close, his ears ringing from the report, and the weapon's recoil sent a fresh pain banging through his shoulder as the rifle beat on his body. The reverberations of the weapon's recoil shuddered through his chest, and part of the boy gaped at the power of the rifle._

_The Frenchman jerked, blood exploding in a cone out of his back, and he fell to one knee. He gasped for breath, then started raising his weapon once more, and the youth screamed._

"_Die!" He pulled the trigger, and the rifle thundered. "_Gorrammit_!" Another shot. "What the hell does it take to kill you!"_

_Jayne fired again, punching a fourth round through the Frenchman, and he fell backwards as if smacked by a steel girder in the face. He toppled back to the dirt, dropping his rifle._

_The boy exhaled, staring at the iron-hard bastard, and when he started sitting up, Jayne shouted again in angry disbelief. The hatred was still there, blazing in the crazy Frenchman's eyes, and he started drawing his pistol._

_Jayne blew his head off._

_As the Callahan's report echoed through the trees, Jayne inhaled and exhaled, watching the motionless, headless corpse._

"_Get up!" he shouted, rising to his feet, tears running down his face. "Get back up! Come on!"_

_After a few moments, he was certain that the man wasn't going to rise again like some insane French zombie, and the youth turned to the man laying beside him._

_Andy stared up at the trees, silent and still. The blood had stopped expanding. His expression was slack, but his eyes were peaceful._

_Jayne stared at the dead man for a few moments, then reached down with dirty, bloodstained fingers and closed those empty eyes. His own eyes were burning from the tears running down his face, and he closed them tight and wiped at them with his sleeve. His fingers were wrapped around the man's rifle, aching like the rest of his body._

"_Thanks," he whispered. The word was wholly inadequate for what he wanted to say, but nothing else would come out of his mouth, and the words wouldn't mean anything._

_There was a shout from the direction of the cabin, a wordless howl of anger, and Jayne rose to his feet._

_The last two wouldn't follow. There were only those two men left, and both were so badly injured that they couldn't continue the chase. He was free, thanks to the dead man lying before him. If he could get to his ship, he could be offworld soon enough before the marshals figured out what the hell was happening._

_There was an incendiary grenade at Andy's belt. It would do. _

_Jayne left a funeral pyre for the best man of the Six behind him as he limped through the woods back to town._

* * *

Jayne stumbled into the shuttle, falling down to his knees, and grasping his bleeding flank and leg.

"Go, Wash!" he yelled, voice hoarse.

"We're out of here!" the pilot yelled back as Jayne shambled toward the medical kit on the back wall. He started to open it.

"Jayne, secure the hatch!" Wash yelled. "I can't go very fast until you do!" The thrusters fired below as the shuttle started to lift again. Grunting under his breath, Jayne spun and started for the hatch. He limped over to it and reached up to grab the lever.

Konstantin levered himself up into the hatch on his good arm, blood pouring down the side of his face, and tackled Jayne with a howl of hatred.

"Not so easy!" he screamed, and slammed Jayne's face into the deck with his free hand. "Fifteen years! Fifteen _gorram _years I've waited for this!" He grabbed Jayne by the neck, face contorting in mindless hate. "You killed them! You and that fucking traitor and his fucking gun!"

Jayne's hands shot up in a wild, desperate punch, the shock at the unexpected attack replaced by outrage. This asshole never gave up, did he? His fists slammed into the Cossack's face, but the berserk fury wouldn't be cowed by a couple of meaty hits to the nose. Konstantin recoiled and then slammed his fist into Jayne's wounded flank.

White-hot pain coursed through him, and it took everything Jayne had to not curl up into a ball. He still screamed in pain, and Konstantin's hand closed around his neck.

"I know why!" he howled, spittle flying in Jayne's face. "I know why he betrayed us! That smiling fuck! And I'll pay him back by killing you! Andrew-"

Wash shot Konstantin six times in the chest. The pilot was less than two meters away, and emptied a revolver into the Cossack, face set in iron-hard determination.

It didn't kill him. The Cossack's body armor absorbed the revolver's bullets, but the force from those gunshots knocked the wind out of the lunatic, and threw him back off Jayne. Gritting his teeth through the pain, Jayne's hands found Binky, and he slid the huge knife out of its sheath. Konstantin surged forward again, recovering from the shock of being shot half a dozen times at point blank, while Wash fumbled for another speed loader.

Jayne snapped one arm up into Konstantin's neck and chest, pushing him back, and sank Binky into the man's armpit, just above the edge of his armor.

Konstantin froze, eyes widening in shock, and Jayne ripped the bloody knife free and kicked with both legs, hitting the Cossack in the chest and sending him hurtling out of the hatch into the blizzard.

The shuttle was silent, save for the laboring engines, and Jayne let himself fall back to the deck, closing his eyes. Binky clattered to the floor beside him.

"Last _gorram _man," he breathed, and managed a laugh before blacking out.

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_The most effective way to show a character: hurt them. Hurt them physically. Hurt them emotionally. Hurt them spiritually. Hurt them, so they can show you what the hell they're made of.

Epilogue's next. Should be much faster than the rest of this story.

Until next chapter . . . .


	72. Last Man: Epilogue

_**Epilogue: The Last Man**_

The blizzard rolled on.

With one arm, he pushed himself up out of the snow, blood soaking his clothes and armor. He opened his mouth to shout up at the gray clouds overhead, but he could barely speak.

Alexi Konstantin raised a fist toward the clouds, loosing a strangled, toneless scream of hate that only ended when his knees gave out.

The last man fell face-first into the snow, and the blizzard covered his corpse in moments.

* * *

The shuttle slid into the dock, and the entire crew waited outside anxiously. Simon had his medical bag in hand, and stood closest to the hatch. They listened intently to the locking equipment as it brought the shuttle in and secured it. Several moments passed before the hatch slid open.

Jayne emerged on Wash's shoulder, the pilot struggling to heft the massive mercenary through the doorway. Jayne's chest was wrapped in tape and bloody bandages, and he hopped along on one good leg, the other also wrapped and stained. Vera was slung from his chest, ugly damage stretching across the weapon's receiver and trigger group. Gasps and exclamations flew up from the crew, and Simon stepped in closer, eyes flicking over the bandages with his clinical concern. Or at least, until Jayne reached up and thumped his shoulder.

"Doc," he said, through a gritted smile. "Gimme a pop for this pain, huh?"

"Please, he's very heavy," Wash pleaded. "And he won't put that gun away."

* * *

Jayne awoke some time later in the infirmary. Simon had said he would need put him under to remove the bullet fragments and cauterize and stitch the whole mess of wounds he'd picked up, but when Jayne looked down, all he saw was the heavy thermal blanket the doctor had wrapped 'round him.

"Mornin'," came Wash's voice, and Jayne looked. The pilot was sitting on the infirmary's counter, bleary eyed but smiling. Jayne opened his mouth to speak, but it was dry, and he worked his jaw and tongue for a moment to get the gummy feeling away. Wash hopped up, snatched a glass by the sink, and started filling it. Over the sound of running water, Jayne listened to the background noise of the ship, and picked out running engines.

"We're in the Black," Jayne said, and Wash nodded.

"The others kept themselves busy while we were keeping our blood," Wash said. "Well, I kept my blood. You seemed pretty intent on losing all of it." He handed Jayne the water.

"Hah hah," Jayne said, pulling an arm out from under the blanket and taking the offered glass. He gulped down a couple of mouthfuls, healthy doctor-like recommendations be damned, and swished some more around in his mouth to get the gummy feeling out.

"What happened?" Jayne asked after swallowing. "I pulled that gunboat off you, but after they came after me on foot, I lost track."

"Long story short, the others slapped together a missile out of a drone and Inara shoved it up their _pi gus_," the pilot replied, and Jayne blinked. "I found you and swooped in to save your half-frozen butt, at least until that crazy one-armed Cossack jumped onto the ship." Wash sat back. "You just can't go anywhere without pissing people off, can you?"

Jayne looked away, staring across the infirmary, and took a couple more sips to keep from saying anything. Just like the first time, he had needed someone to fly in and save his ass. And more than that, Wash was keeping a vigil over him.

"Thanks," Jayne finally said, looking back to the pilot. "I owe you."

"No you don't," Wash replied, shaking his head. "You forgot what Mal said before? We're crew."

Jayne still wasn't sure how to respond to that, so he simply nodded.

"Vera?" he asked.

"Oh, I threw that hunk of crap out the airlock," Wash said, and Jayne's eyes widened for a moment, before tightening.

"That ain't funny, Wash," he growled, and the pilot raised his hands of surrender. He pointed across the infirmary.

Jayne followed and saw Vera lying on the counter, still shot to hell. He sat up slowly, pulling the thermal blanket off, and levered his legs down. Wash was beside him by the time his legs hit the floor, and he put his weight on them.

He hissed as pain shot up his calf, but limped over to the counter with Wash's help. He touched the dead rifle with his bare hands, and stared at it for a long moment.

"Simon said "No guns in my infirmary," but, well, piss on that," Wash said. "I knew how much that old thing meant to you."

Jayne picked up Vera by the barrel, peered down at the butcher-bitch's broken innards, and shook his head.

"Got no idea, little man," he muttered. "Let me down," he added, and Wash reluctantly let him put his full weight on his leg. Jayne hissed through the pain, but refused to let the leg give. It was his leg, _gorrammit_, and it was gonna do what he wanted it to do.

"Got work to do, don't we?" he asked, and started limping out of the infirmary.

* * *

Wash let Jayne move off on his own, and headed out to the cargo bay, where Kaylee was apparently still working on the power loader from the drone base. He mentioned that she had "ideas," and Jayne felt a powerful bit of dread at that thought.

Jayne hopped and walked toward the inner stairs going up to the dining area, and spotted Inara, enticing as ever, emerging from Mal's bunk. She looked a bit better than before; not as much moping and painting and calligraphy as before, maybe. Hopefully.

"Jayne," she said. "Are you still hurting?"

"Hell yeah," he grunted as he limped past, cradling his rifle. "I appreciate the rescue back there."

"Kaylee built it, I just flew it," she replied with one her prettiest of smiles. He scowled at that.

"Some gunsmith out there made Vera, but every person done killed someone with her was a Cobb," he replied. "Don't go sellin' yourself short. You gonna say every man or woman you done sexed was all due to the Companions teachin', or your own skill?"

For once, Inara was quiet. Whether surprised, thoughtful, or offended, he couldn't tell, but she looked away and stopped smiling. Jayne turned and kept hop-walking toward the stairs, but then stopped.

Out there, he'd been alone, cold air in his lungs and the possibility of death on his shoulder, spouting eloquence and bringing up memories. That campfire and that cooking venison came back, and he looked back to Inara. She had gotten over whatever had wiped the smile from her and was starting toward the cargo bay.

"'Nara," he called, and she paused, looking back toward him. "Look, I got to thinkin', out there. If I died and whatever, I-"

"Jayne, if you're propositioning me," she started, and he blinked.

"Well, no, I ain't," he said with a quick backpedal, and then caught himself. Images normally reserved for bunk-time came up. "I mean, if you're offerin', now ain't a good time, with the leg, but we can always try the-"

"No, Jayne," she said, with one of those melting smiles. He stopped, mouth going into a tight frown.

"Oh, ha ha," he said. "Puttin' me off balance, is that it?" he asked, and she gave him a slight nod.

"Okay, serious-like. I was thinking, on my regrets, understand?" She nodded again. "And if I died, how much I would regret things left undone and unsaid and so on," he continued, and hop-walked a bit closer.

"So, here's the thing. Don't regret nothin', 'Nara." He gestured with his head toward Mal's bunk. "Whenever Mal gets bored with being in a coma and crawls back out, you go over to him and stop dancin' round. You give him a choice: his bunk or your shuttle. Understand?"

Her mouth had opened somewhere in that last sentence, and he took that as a good sign. The woman needed a shock to get her out of stupid, like lots of folks.

"Understand?" he asked again, and she closed her mouth and nodded.

"Yes, I do believe I understand," she replied, and looked back to the bunk. Something changed in her right then, in the way she held herself, in the set of her jaw. Maybe she'd made a choice. Good enough, he guessed.

Jayne turned and started limping back toward the stairs.

"'Least-ways some good came out this," he muttered under his breath, and began the painful process of climbing those stairs. He wished someone would give him control over the gravity for once.

* * *

Two hours later, Jayne was leaning over the dining room's table, peering down at Vera's disassembled components, wounded leg on the bench beside him. The old rifle had taken a beating, not even considering the damage she'd taken from the Cossack.

But she'd kill again. He had a datapad next to him, linked to Bobby Ray's Guns'N'Things, the biggest gray-market gun-running site on the Cortex. He'd been ordering weapons from them for years, and had just finished ordering parts to replace the components that Konstantin's last few bullets had ruined. They didn't come cheap; the Callahan was an expensive weapon that required specially-machined parts, and individual pieces always had a markup compared with the whole weapon. Plus Vera had plenty of aftermarket kits and modification to jack up the expense. Getting her back in killing shape would take a bit of cash and some time to covertly ship the components to one of Mal's several drops.

For now, though, he was carefully cleaning and doing minor repairs on the parts that were still functional. Jayne went about his particular brand of cautious meticulousness in caring for the individual parts, and said nothing when the Shepherd sat down opposite him.

"How are your injuries coming?" he asked. Jayne was silent for a moment; the preacher was using his usual familiar drawl, which by now they all knew was just a . . . what was the word? Fectalation? No, _affectation_. That was it. The tone he used when he was trying to be relaxed, not serious.

"Just a twinge now," Jayne replied. "Keepin' busy takes my mind off it." A few moments of quiet passed.

"I always wondered what would make you so protective of that weapon," Book said, and Jayne paused while cleaning the barrel. "What would make you sentimental."

"Yep," Jayne said after a moment, and resumed cleaning.

"Then why would you offer it for a woman with no purpose beyond the bed?" Book asked, and Jayne slowed.

"Mal told you about that?" he asked, looking up, and Book shook his head.

"Kaylee did," the Shepherd said, smiling. "And Mal refused."

"Hell, it was stupid," Jayne said. "But I was . . . Hell, I was stupid and horny," he said, and scowled something fierce at Book's look of confusion. "What, you were expecting some deeper reasonin' behind it? She was a fine woman, for a sneaky, lowdown deceiving devil-bitch. I was dumb. There ain't nothin' more to that."

He resumed cleaning, and Book nodded after a few moments.

"I was, perhaps, hoping there was more to it," he replied. "A desire for something beyond this life of violence you enjoy leading."

Jayne snorted.

"I like it, preacher," he said. "Like the fightin', Like the struggle. When I was down there . . . ." he stopped, mulling over the words. "Blood was singin' to me. You ever felt that? Your whole body, lovin' every second when you're in the moment, killin' or trying not to get killed?"

Book closed his eyes, and nodded.

"Yes. I remember the adrenaline. I remember it well."

"It's gonna kill me one day," Jayne said. "Live we lead ain't long, but I won't retire. Not 'till I'm in my grave." He stopped for a few seconds, thoughtful. "Just say the right words over me when I go, Shepherd?"

Book was about to reply when he was cut off. That was becoming the routine these days.

"_All hands, to the cockpit, right now!"_ came a sudden yell on the intercom. It was Zoe, and that tone of voice sent ice water down his spine.

It was a rare thing to hear her speak with naked worry.

Adrenaline turned his pain to a distant buzz as he and book shot up and started toward the cockpit. By reflex, Jayne checked his sidearm holster, and cursed when he realized he was still unarmed.

They reached the cockpit, Jayne limping behind the old man and a bit embarrassed that the Shepherd beat him there, and grunted as he stomped up the steps.

"The hell is-" he started, and stopped mid-sentence when he saw everyone else on the crew was already in the cramped room, gathered around Wash's seat. He thought he heard a droning voice coming from the console, and limped up.

"_Ta ma de_," Wash breathed.

"What happened?" Jayne asked, apprehension creeping in. Kaylee was looking down past Wash's shoulder, one hand on her mouth and the other gripping Simon's. The doctor was staring at the screen with that clinical intensity, but the rest of him was stock still, like a deer in the light. Everyone else had equal looks of fear or shock, he guessed.

"Hey, someone gonna tell me what's so horrific?"

Book stepped aside, and Jayne leaned closer, looking over Wash's shoulder.

"Monty just beamed it to us," Zoe murmured. "Says someone he knew who knew about us wanted to tell us. Play it back, hon."

It was a recording. Short and simple, and Jayne recognized the skyline: Persephone's capital megalopolis, but at night. It looked like, well, he would describe it as a carpet of burning silver spikes stabbing at the night sky, if he was feeling poetical, and the painkillers were doing just that.

It was a recording from a police aircar, hovering above a rooftop. Spotlights shone down on the roof, into a maze of cooling systems and Cortex link-towers for the building. Police, some in regular uniforms and others in purple-belly marshal armor, were all over the rooftop. There were two other men, he saw, and his blood ran ice-cold when he saw them.

They wore black business suits, but their hands were powder-blue.

They were walking out of the maze of equipment, dragging something between them, a dozen men in slate-gray armor like the commandos that Jayne and Book had fought on Sirocco Station following, weapons ready.

They came closer to the aircar, and the camera showed what they were carrying. Head down, hands and feet manacled, posture slumped in defeat. For a moment, Jayne found himself fervently hoping that it wasn't _her._

She then looked up at the camera, her eyes glazed over, her face slack. He thought he saw tears.

They shoved River into the back of an aircar, and then Jayne saw

_red_

Pain rolled up his arm, and everyone started yelling. Jayne blinked, the rage screaming in his blood, and he looked around for a moment. Everyone was staring at him, Wash scooting backward out of his chair, and his hand hurt like hell. Jayne looked down, and blood was running from knuckles that had just smashed the screen.

"Jayne, what the hell-" someone said, and Simon was beside him, grabbing his arm and pulling it out of the broken screen. He stood there, blinking and surprised, while Simon snatched up one of the medical kits they'd been stashing throughout the ship and pulling out bandages.

"They took her," he breathed, and the red crept in again, not a sudden flash like what had just happened, but a surging, mounting storm like the kind that newly-terraformed worlds saw.

"Yes," Simon replied, pulling him aside. "You have glass in your arm. Hold still."

"They took her," Jayne repeated, uninjured hand clenching. Those words brought intensity and order to that terraform-hurricane. The rest of the crew stared at him, and he looked up, meeting their collective gaze, jaw clenching. Zoe nodded at his words.

"And we're going to get her back," she said, her words granite.

* * *

_**Author's Notes:** _It took me way too long to write this tale, and I think I know part of the problem. Without Mal and River, it becomes harder to write for the crew. They're integral parts of the story and setting. Hopefully the next story won't take so long.

This story marked an effort to both explore Jayne's history and development, as well as tell the kind of "survivalist" thriller tale of men fighting one another without help nearby. The parallelism of both the flashback and the present struggle was not actually deliberate; I only realized how well it all synched up about halfway through writing it. This story was also a deliberate break from the overarching metaplot of Forward, much like Mosaic; major aspects of the metaplot surrounding the Academy and the brewing consequences of the Miranda broadwave have been part of the story since the beginning, but sometimes you just need to get away from the overall story and have a character piece. In some ways, this story runs opposite of the structure of Firefly; while the series had several episodes focusing on its metaplot, most of the episodes where character pieces or standalone tales, while this series is more closely tied with the overarching plotline.

This story actually got its initial inception not from Jayne's story about the six men, but with me thinking about other aspects of Jayne's history, like how he had been in trouble with the law before, how he picked up his forgery skills, and so on. In thinking on that, I began developing ideas about Jayne's family and background, how he left his home, his relations to Mattie and his mother, and so on. Then we got into the whole thing with the Six. Those guys were a tremendous challenge to write, simply because I had to flesh out six original characters and how they worked, fought, and related to one another, and then how they fought (and died against) Jayne. Sadly, I think I didn't develop them as well as I could; the Syrian was left largely undeveloped, and the Frenchman was little more than "Lots of grunting plus being the _gorram_ Terminator." Though they ended up being pretty much _The Expendables_ without the invincibility, I didn't actually base them on the Expendables, but more on the robbery crew from _Reservoir Dogs_; as the final shoot out shows. The Mongol was pretty much Mr. Blonde with a different ethnicity. Andy's connection to Jayne wasn't part of the original story, but I came up with it while planning the story out so that there would be the plausible connection between them that led to his betrayal of the rest of the team.

And before anyone asks, nope, I'm not going to clarify their relationship. The story actually indicates precisely how they are related, but that's something I think I'll leave you guys to find. Sometimes, letting the reader work to find the answer to the mystery is better than laying it all out explicitly.

This story was originally going to have an even more shocking ending, but I found the abrupt swerve was actually premature, and I needed to build up to it. I like swerves as much as anyone else, but move too fast and too suddenly, and you give the audience whiplash and broken necks, and I think I subject you guys to enough twists as it is.

Next story, we find out what River's been up to in the months since Serenity went into hiding, and how she got into this situation on Persephone. She's been a busy girl.

Until next chapter . . . .


	73. Fifth Interlude

_**Interlude Five: Tables and Chairs**_

The corridor leading to the Director's office was much like everything else relating to the Academy: metal fixtures of polished, stainless steel, blank white walls, and reflective, mirror-smooth white ceramic tiles. It was like the sickness that permeated the main facility had infected the offices of the administration. A necessary sickness, of course; Admiral Havelock would not have backed the contracts that set up the projects surrounding the Academy in the first place if she had not felt that.

Just like the disease on Miranda. That had been necessary. Disastrous, but necessary.

But this particular disease was spreading too quickly. The first four escapes were bad enough, and the ensuing mass suicide among the survivors had severely hampered operations. But three _more_ subjects had now escaped.

The Director was going to provide answers or heads. If not enough of either, then his own would suffice.

Admiral Havelock guided her hoverchair down the hallway past the receptionist's desk. She didn't say anything to the Admiral, instead simply buzzing her into the security room beyond. The two men flanking the office door in the antechamber wore sharply tailored suits, and carried sleek submachineguns. They did nothing to hide their purpose, and watched the Admiral behind reflective sunglasses.

She smiled as she guided her chair toward the door. The worst thing about getting old was that people stopped thinking you were dangerous. Doubly so when you were crippled and unable to accept augments to repair the physical damage. But these men treated her with respect, as they knew what she represented. They held her at the door for a moment, one guard speaking into his earpiece, and then the door opened behind them. She floated past the respectfully-vigilant bodyguards into the room beyond.

The office was the same as she remembered it: simple, straightforward, utilitarian. Chrome and glass dominated everything: a black-tiled, reflective floor, glass tabletops held up by steel legs, a desk with a glass top and steel frame, transparent wall-gardens, a vast glass bay window overlooking the rolling expanse of terraformed jungle beyond. Nothing soft, save the black leather chair that was facing the window.

The Admiral frowned, as was her wont, when she saw that chair turned away from her. She slowed the hoverchair, letting it settle to the floor and silencing the faint whirring of the engine. Aside from her, the only person in the vast office was a man standing next to the desk, arms clasped behind him, face hidden behind a flat, reflective mask of polished black plastic. He would have resembled a riot policeman, were he not wearing a simple, equally black suit of material not too dissimilar to the armored space suits most mercenaries or bounty hunters wore. Boots, gloves, mylar with ceramic plating underneath, but no sidearm.

Havelock assumed the man did not need one.

"Director," she said, looking away from the bodyguard and toward the chair.

It spun around, and she scowled at the sudden motion. The director of the Academy was not prone to such melodramatic nonsense.

But the slender man with the thin features and the roguish half-smile sitting in the Director's chair was not, in fact, the Director.

"Who are you?" she demanded. The slender man's smile grew to encompass both sides of his face, and he reached up to slick back his dark hair. His skin was dark, but she couldn't place ethnicity.

"Always wanted to do that, but you had to ruin the moment, Havelock," he said. He held up a hand as she was about to repeat her question. "My name is Mamjudar Whitman. Former Head of Operations with the Asylum Initiative at our lovely factory for mentally-unstable superweapons. Now, acting director of all Academy operations."

He inclined his head toward her.

"Mr. Whitman," she said, sitting back, and processed the shift. The Asylum. Her scowl deepened as she recalled the details behind that particular aspect of an already distasteful secret.

"Where is the Director?" she asked.

"Fertilizing up to three continents right now, depending on wind speed and direction," Whitman replied with a shrug. Havelock's eyes narrowed, and he grinned at the Admiral. "Please, Havelock. The same thing happened to Doctor Mattias, didn't it?" He raised his eyebrows. "Or are you just miffed that I dealt with an incompetent the same way you did, but without your input?"

"He was your-"

"Boss, director, head-moron-in-charge, yeah, yeah, I know," Whitman said. "And under his direction we had seven escapes, three within the last couple of weeks, due to the fact that _someone_ cannot keep a lid on one of their rogue agents. You know, that asshole, calls himself 'Nemo' now, ring a bell?"

Whitman stood up. He was tall, almost gaunt, and the suit he wore emphasized his lean build as he strode around the desk, opposite the masked, motionless bodyguard. Havelock watched him carefully, her chair's defense systems armed and ready.

"Anyway, long story short, he fucked up one too many times, I got tired of him, and I strangled him and threw his corpse in an incinerator. Gally over there dealt with a few other loose ends," Whitman continued, nodding to the bodyguard. "So, now I'm in charge of the Academy."

He turned to her and grinned.

"Aren't you just _thrilled_?"

"The man in charge of experimenting on the unstable rejects of the Cerberus Initiative being in charge of the entire program?" Havelock said, settling back in her chair. "Not quite."

"Okay, yeah, I might have been the guy in charge of that ball of fun," Whitman said with a nod. "I may have handled operations, signed off on the experiments, did a little bit of cutting, but that's _beside the point_."

He shrugged again as he stared out the window at the terraformed jungle below.

"The previous Director was a moron , and he got worse and worse with each successive screw up. First there was One-Three-Seven, then One-One-Nine, then the mass suicides, then the next wave of escapees. Garis has been off on his wild goose chase for months now with nothing to show for it. Something had to give, or you were going to shut the program down."

He turned away from the bright green landscape below and shrugged again.

"So I killed him and took over the project," Whitman said, and he smiled again. "I _like _this project, and I don't want to see it go down."

"You are dangerously unstable, Mr. Whitman," she said, and he shrugged.

"You can call it crazy. I call it decisive. But I, and by extension, _you_, have direct control over Merlin," he said, turning back to the window, "and right now six units are operational. Including Galahad over there."

She froze, looking back toward the faceless bodyguard standing impassively beside the desk. Her skin started crawling. She didn't realize just what she had been looking at, but now that she did, she had to fight the urge to keep from reactivating the chair and moving across the room.

"That thing is a Merlin?" she asked, and he nodded, his grin threatening to swallow his ears.

"It's the crowning achievement of the Asylum Initiative," he replied. "I took the washouts and I _made them work_. Well, the ones that survived."

He turned back to her, and walked toward the desk.

"Merlin can do what you wanted the Cerberus assassin protocols to do, and more," he explained. "And unlike the Cerberus units, they're not restricted to baseline human psychical capability. I'll have a full report, complete with videos, operational records, and blood spatter analysis later tonight.

"And I've also finished the layout for the next phase of Cerberus," he continued, and Havelock perked up at that. "Yeah, figured out the kinks that my predecessor was working on for years. The benefits of having an actual scientist instead of a bureaucrat in charge. I've got some of the units installed now, but we need a strong Empath to finish it out. You know what I have in mind, of course."

"One-Three-Seven," Havelock said, and he nodded.

"Oh, and the best part," Whitman said, settling into his chair. "Now that we've got the baseline Cerberus units online, we can begin sending _signals_."

He leaned over and a holographic keyboard appeared. His fingers played over the display, and a few moments later another hologram appeared over the desk between them, showing a line of identical brains. Numbers and graphs and faint lines of color marked each one, and she peered at them for a few moments.

Somewhere in the conversation, she realized, she'd become less worried and more interested.

"How long?" she asked, checking the progression and running the math.

"Eight months," Whitman said, leaning back. "It won't matter if Garis finds One-Three-Seven at that point, because we will _own_ her."

"How extensive would the control systems be?" Havelock asked. "Can we rely on it to keep any of them from escaping again?"

"Admiral, once we send that signal," Whitman said, eyes bright with glee, "If I were to order her so, she'd walk in here, tear everything off, and _get on her knees _for me. There won't be a _person _left in there, just a warm body that I - sorry, _we_ will be able to turn to your utopia project."

"Graphic," Havelock said, "But adequate."

"Aw," Whiteman pouted. "Just adequate? What do I need to do, buy you a pony made of diamonds?"

"Not necessary," Havelock said, shaking her head, and she reactivated the hoverchair. "Just get me those reports."

"Yep, you got it, Admiral."

"And Mr. Whitman," she added, stopping.

"Yes, ma'am?" he asked.

"I do appreciate your initiative now that I am more confident in your competence," she said, pivoting the chair back toward him. "But I still doubt your sanity. Nothing personal, but anyone associated with a project as necessary but twisted as this one has to be somewhat mentally questionable."

"Your point?" Whitman asked. Then, "Ma'am?"

"I was close to shutting down this operation and reappropriating all assets into Naval Special Research Command," she continued. "But I am willing to give you a chance. The situation on the Border and Rim is getting more intense, and the political situation in Parliament is becoming worse as the impeachment trials progress. The last thing anyone wants is another Miranda-scale public disaster."

She let that hang in the air for a moment, and he nodded.

"I do not want to, but if necessary, I will take a flamethrower to the whole thing," she finished, and pivoted back toward the door. "Do try to keep me from doing something drastic. I would _hate _to fertilize three continents with _your _ashes, Mr. Whitman."

"I understand, ma'am," he replied, his tone flat.

"Excellent. Good day, Mr. Whitman."

* * *

Nemo leaned over the balcony overlooking the scrubland, a light wind rustling the scraggly leaves on the thin trees. The local vegetation had not taken well to the planet's terraforming, but it struggled on, and he could see healthier strains springing up after the last seed-drone pass had deposited a new, genetically-stronger generation.

"They've doubled deployment in the last two weeks," called Heaton, his words drawn out in classic Border drawl. "I've recorded more than three times as many violent incidents between Alliance military personnel and the local populations."

"The civil unrest on Victoria has continued to spread," added Collins. Her clipped, refined tones bespoke of her Core heritage. Osiris, if Nemo recalled correctly. "We theorized that Wade's death would stabilize things, but they've only grown worse. It's now obvious that her insanity had longer and wider-ranging effects than we expected."

"That's a good thing," replied Shurlten. The general's accent was a mixture: bits of American Northeast, Scottish, and Russian. "More unrest is more chaos. We need chaos."

"More chaos means more military presence in the Border and Rim," Collins replied. "We lost a conventional war when we had a regular military. We won't last weeks with a major military presence on every Border and Rim planet."

"The Alliance can't spread its fleets across hundreds of Border and Rim planets," Shurlten pointed out. "More deployment means more strain on their resources and a greater pull on their logistics. An overstretched enemy is a brittle one."

"I do not see any fleets under our command to capitalize on this brittle enemy, General," Collins replied, her tone cold. "Heaton, how many troops do we have, period?"

"Two million," he replied. "But they are scattered across a hundred worlds, and would barely be enough to hold a couple of planets in the Rim."

"That's why we need more chaos and unrest!" Shurlten objected. "We can't foment rebellion if everyone is happy with the Alliance's presence! We need entire worlds in revolt!"

"And that will result in orbiting battle fleets and deployments of tens of millions of enemy soldiers per world," Collins pointed out. "We cannot fight that."

Nemo listened to the argument with half an ear. It was the same discussion they'd had for the last few months, echoed over and over. Those three were the most vocal of the eclectic leadership of their group, and he found their discussions inane at best and embarrassing at worst.

_Why did I join them?_ he asked himself. The answer came immediately.

He could never return to the Alliance. Not after he realized just how far he'd fallen. Devotion to that government had come from a belief that they were doing the right thing. Distasteful, at times, but necessary. But his complicity in the deaths of millions and the creation of the Reavers - complicity by distant association, but still complicity - had been . . .

He still didn't know how to describe it. He had asked Captain Reynolds how it felt to go on when one's entire world was not simply broken, but annihilated. His answer, as typical, had been blunt but surprisingly relevant.

Reynolds had told him that if he stayed where he was - beneath Serenity's thrusters - he would never find out. And the truth was, if he had stayed in place, paralyzed by indecision as to where to go and what to do, it would have ended him.

He had sought these people out and given them his sword because he had to keep moving forward.

But these tireless, directionless _meetings._

"Excuse me for a moment," one of the conspirators said, and a moment later a stocky, heavily-built man was leaning on the wooden railing beside Nemo. The two men stared out over the scrub that was barely separated from their provincial townhouse by a low stone wall. Manicured gardens and green lawns stood directly below.

"Madness," muttered Hammond, and Nemo nodded. "Can't stand being in the room with them when they're like thus. Shurlten can take it, but I can't."

"Some soldiers can handle bureaucracy," Nemo mused. "Others have no use for it."

"If I could get back in the field, I wouldn't mind," Hammond said, shaking his head. "But we haven't _done_ anything in the last year. Not since Obrin . . . You know."

Nemo nodded, remaining silent for a moment, listening distantly to the circular arguments of the leadership behind them.

"I need some more of your men," Nemo said quietly, and Hammond nodded.

"How many?"

"Maybe thirty," Nemo said. "Airmobile assault training will be needed. Preferably spec-ops and recon, but if you cannot acquire them, I can work with regular airborne."

"What do you need them for?" Hammond asked.

It was a good question. The last few operations he had carried out with Hammond's special operators had resulted in heavy losses. Particularly the mission on Silverhold, but he had not expected to run afoul of Reynolds' crew. That had been a horrific coincidence.

"Extraction and fire support for an operation," he said. "Ideally, the mission should not require them, but I need a team in case matters become complicated."

"I might find a Blank or two, if this is Academy-related," Hammond suggested. "We don't have the canvassing capability of the Alliance, but we can dig some up if needed."

"Not required," Nemo said.

"Do you need anyone else?" Hammond asked, relaxing a bit. Nemo knew that he didn't want to get anymore involved in the psychic aspect of this covert war than necessary.

"No," Nemo replied. "I already have the specialists I need."

* * *

_The interrogation room was standard-issue, the kind he had seen and worked in countless times before. Most of his best work was done here, sitting, talking, and explaining until the subject broke down. Physically-aggressive coercion was . . . Avoided, if possible._

_She sat on the opposite side of the desk, and as he walked in, he examined her. There was a careful neutrality to her posture, and her eyes analyzed him as he strode into the room and sat down across from her. She did not appear nervous or worried; either she was certain she could get out of her current predicament, or she was familiar enough with such rooms that they no longer concerned her._

"_There is not much time," Nemo had said. At that point in time, he had not adopted that identifier. At that point, he still had not had a name at all, beyond "Operative."_

"_Busy schedule?" she asked, hands clasped on the table before her. They were cuffed, but she would have been no threat without them, and they both knew that._

"_Urgent, would be more accurate," he replied. Most times he would enter with a datapad or binder, and use it to reference information, or just to make the subject sweat while he perused it. He did not need information, however, and had no time for theatrics this day._

"_The crimes your current identity are accused of are thankfully minor," he said. "In fact, there is a high likelihood of you being assigned to a mental ward instead of prison, but that has yet to be determined." _

_He met her eyes, and saw strength in them. This was not a weak woman._

"_Your other aliases, however, will likely face much more severe sentences, assuming you are identified properly. Piracy. Murder. Grand larceny. Weapons trafficking. Vandalism."_

"_It was an ugly moon," she said with a smirk. He raised an eyebrow. She continued._

"_If you know what I've done under one name and can find the others, what use is there in denying it?" she asked. "I know when I'm caught. You want me to make a plea bargain? Get me a lawyer."_

"_I'm not offering you a bargain," he said. "I am offering you a job."_

"_I see," she said, frowning. She sat back, brow furrowing. "The catch?"_

"_No catch," he replied. "I am offering you a clean slate. A complete wipe of your criminal record. However, the task I require of you will be of high risk."_

"_Those are the best kind," she said, her smile returning._

"_You must make the decision quickly, however," he said, and glanced at his watch. "I do not have much time."_

"_Pressure tactics won't work on me, hon," she said, that smile growing. "I specialize in working under pressure."_

"_Not pressure, but urgency," he replied. "I suspect in less than an hour my capacity to remove you from this facility and wipe your records will be revoked."_

_She narrowed her eyes, and nodded._

"_This has to do with Miranda, doesn't it?" she asked, and he nodded. She glanced around the room. "And all the recording devices are disabled?"_

"_Compatriots, in the observation booth," he said. She frowned again, and slowly nodded once more._

"_You got a deal," she said. "Not like I have much choice."_

"_We follow the solar winds to our destinations, and rarely have much choice," he replied, and stood. "I have already made the arrangements. But we must leave swiftly." He nodded to the observation booth, and the door slid open. "The viral wipe will begin executing by the time we have left the prison."_

"_What's to stop me from running on you first chance?" she asked as he escorted her out of the room._

"_Nothing, save me," he replied, and she slowed, looking up at him. He thought he saw a shudder run through the woman._

"_Okay, that's good enough," she said quietly, and they made their way down the hallway. She flexed her wrists, and the handcuffs clattered quietly. "Can you get these off? Never liked wearing them."_

"_Once we are outside," he replied. "You will have to trust me on that."_

"_No, I don't," she said, almost under her breath._

"_Trust as you wish," Nemo replied. "As long as you do the task we assign you, I do not care."_

* * *

Hammond and Nemo walked back into the conference room, taking their seats. The circular argument between the conspirators had wound down, and they began moving on to other issues with their nascent, likely-doomed rebellion.

"Nemo," Collins said as he settled into his chair. "Report."

She eyed him with distrust, and her words were an order. The thin, stark-boned woman had made it clear from the beginning that he was not precisely trusted, even though he sat on their councils and carried out critical missions. Then again, he had killed her subordinate. Lee Obrin had earned his execution, but Collins had not personally forgiven Nemo for taking the man's life. He could see hate in her eyes.

But such was his lot; even as part of the Alliance there had been many who looked upon him as if he were a near-rabid attack dog, as opposed to a man. In truth, he was not certain if their scorn was misplaced.

"The three we rescued from the transit convoy last month are healthy," he reported, "and most importantly, mostly sane. They have not been taken to the primary facility, nor undergone severe neural modification, nor were they injected with any of the augments or chemicals that we have been alerted to. I still have them in isolation and observation for their own safety, but they are grateful. I suspect they will turn to our side with some convincing."

"The oldest one is just sixteen," Shurlten said, and Nemo nodded. The general scowled, and gestured for him to continue. He didn't need to say anything else. They were desperate, and turning to teenagers with even minimal telesthetic capability was only mildly distasteful considering their situation.

"I have located Priad," Nemo continued. "As well as the Inducer protecting him. Contact with them is being planned, but we must be cautious. A frightened Kinetic can cause terrible damage, especially with an Inducer in proximity."

"A frightened psychic of any type can cause such destruction," Collins murmured. "Your inability to contain Wade proved that much. The violence on Victoria is only growing thanks to her influence."

Nemo nodded, and when Shurlten opened his mouth, he held up a hand and shook his head. The general swallowed his protest. Of the fourteen men and women on this secret council of rebellious conspirators, he was the one who showed him the most respect.

"And Tam?" Heaton asked.

_That _was a critical question, not the least of which because he knew far more about current events than the rest of the council.

"I have located her," Nemo said, picking his words carefully. "I do not know if she will be receptive to us. Obrin's rash actions may have alienated her."

"We need her," Collins said, shaking her head.

"Her abilities, or her testimony?" Nemo asked.

"Yes," Collins replied, and Nemo nodded.

"I will attempt contact," he said. "But she will be reticent to assist us. I believe she wishes to be left to herself."

"She doesn't have a choice," Collins said. "Find her. Recruit her."

Collins's bluntness reflected the opinion of a specific subordinate of hers, a man whom Nemo had killed several months back. She didn't seem to understand the difficulty of securing the girl's allegiance. All she saw were tools and risks. He nodded again, and sat back in his chair. The meeting progressed to other issues, and he said nothing more.

He didn't tell them of what had happened on Persephone. Of what was happening _now_ on Persephone, relating to the very trump card they were desperately and irrationally bent on recruiting into their fold. They seemed to obsess over that girl; _everyone _seemed to be obsessing over that girl, despite her limitations.

But the Council couldn't do anything about it now, and if they knew what was progressing on Persephone right now - the screaming, the bloodshed - they would just get more worried and irrational. He would keep it quiet until he had resolved the situation.

One way or the other.

* * *

_**Author's**_**_ Notes_:** This interlude was rather short; it was originally the prologue for the next episode, but the next episode kept growing as I outlined it and wrote components of it, and I quickly realized that the content in here was not directly connected to the next episode's storyline. So I split off the parts most suitable to an interlude to make up this vein of pure, gleaming foreshadowing.

Aside from showing some indications as to the wider world, I also realized that, in reviewing the rest of this monster of a story, that I had not actually established the villains much. Sure, we had episode-specific badguys, and hints of the larger overarching story and interconnected nature of the various episodes - especially in how Nemo seemed to keep showing up everywhere Serenity went - but I realized that we didn't know _who_ the villains were. We had the wheelchair-bound Admiral bossing around the Academy personnel, but no name or motivation for her. We had Nemo and the nebulous Browncoat resistance-remnant, but nothing on their plans or what they were doing. We had the academy's agents, but no inkling of the leadership.

So, I decided we had to get our real villains, the big bad evil guys, and the sinisterly vague councils of vague planning revealed. Plus, there were aspects of the next few episodes and the greater story arc that absolutely had to be established.

And in case the diamond pony reference wasn't clear, yes, Mr. Whitman is inspired by Handsome Jack. In fact, the Academy and general and Blue Sun as a whole are likely going to have aspects of the Hyperion Corporation, though the humorous sociopathy might be toned down and played a lot more seriously. I personally keep imagining Blue Sun as somewhere between Hyperion and Armacham from FEAR.

Until next chapter . . . .


	74. Wrath: Prologue

_Patient arrived at clinic at 17:32, conveyed by local medical practitioner Doctor Hishin after immediate stabilization. Reports indicate patient was engaged in violent altercation with multiple attackers (pirates, going by the description) but successfully fended them off. Upon arrival, patient was admitted to emergency room care to address injuries beyond Doctor Hishin's abilities and equipment to stabilize further. At 18:11, patient was deemed stabilized and moved to ICU ward._

_Patient remained in ICU ward for seventy-eight hours before regaining consciousness. Shortly afterward, patient was transferred to general care._

* * *

_**Wrath: Prologue: Retina**__**  
**_

The walls _pressed_ close. Not a pod; this hotel was more expensive. One small room, a bed, a bath. Luxury, in the heart of Walrick City on Persephone. Where _faces_ and _shoulders_ and _**bodies**_ were pressed together so close every inhalation was from someone's exhalation. Even in the airy skyscrapers there was _congestion_.

She sat, _running calculations _and routes and scenarios, _alternate realities _playing out around her. They **assembled** and _**disassembled**_, like computer models composed of _concepts and supposition and emotion_. Fingers _tapped_ and tugged and pulled, tightening straps around synthetic leather and ceramic and metal. A thread of fiberoptic ran to a patch behind her ear, electricity _**whispering**_ back and forth.

She stood, the last straps tightened and the dermal-neural interface synchronizing with the _off-kilter _signals her brain was sending. She twisted her hips, stretching her legs, and her muscles _**reported**_ looseness and strength. A _flutter of anxiety_ buzzed about her stomach.

The _weapon_ _**hissed. **_

_It warned her that she was unarmed_, save for the equipment **hugging** her calves and her back. She didn't fight its _**warnings**_. It was _a part of her now_. She did, however, dismiss them.

She turned to the datapad sitting in the bed, and looked over the faces displayed there. Itinerary. Location. Security detail. She had memorized all of the relevant details already, but refreshed them anyway. They _**burned**_ into her brain, _locking neurons into specific, unbreakable __**patterns**_ representing the data in question.

She wiped the datapad and threw it into the trash, then stood. She picked up the shades by the bed, peering down at them for a moment, and then _hid her eyes behind them_.

River Tam cracked her knuckles, and the anxiety _**coiling**_ around and **jabbing** _into her skin _grew stronger. But there was no way around it.

Rashid had taught her how to live with it. Two months was barely enough time to find oneself, but she had managed _to salve the worst _of the wounds she'd _**cut**_ into her psyche.

She stopped at the mirror and examined herself, sliding the shades off. She brought up the _seared memory _of her _**reflection**_ from two months ago and set the image beside herself. Skin, once pale, now tanned by sun. Hair, wild and tangled, now less tangled and _rebellious_. Body, once slender and willowy, hidden behind long skirts. Now, still light and slender, but more toned, with definition to the muscles visible under her short sleeves and long pants.

Her eyes were where the sharpest difference _lurked_. Within them was a hardness that had nothing to do _with the weapon_, an _echo_ of **ugliness** and **deformation** that was repulsive, but necessary. There was lucidity there as well, moreso than she was familiar with. Not from drugs, at least. It granted structure to the _**chaos**_ of her mind, _focusing thoughts down channels _like rainwater. **Functionality **ensued, which allowed her to examine herself, and see the ugly emotions lurking beneath _**the neural ocean**_.

There was still the _sliding, __**prickly **__anxiety_, but it burned slowly but surely away under another, heated _**sensation**_**emotion**_thought__**feeling**_:

_**wrath**_

There was a man on Persephone named William Ornstintz. She remembered him intimately from that place of _**cold walls **_and **steel fittings **and _icy pain_. _Words_, _cruel and demanding_. _Orders_, _painful and humiliating_.

She pulled the shades back on, and headed for the door.

Violence was impending, and _the weapon,_ the girl, and **_the__ furnace_** wanted to see it play out.

* * *

Sergeant Roth and Corporal Burke strode down the street, their distinctive uniforms giving them a small but significant berth among the crowd. The people shied away from the two Persephone military police officers. Their armor was lighter-weight than regular military or marshals, and they wore caps with augmented display glasses instead of helmets, but they still cut an imposing figure as they walked down the street.

"Look, I know a good fry joint just down the road," Burke was saying. "They use actual dingo in the meat. Cheap too."

"Not on duty," Roth grunted. The light from dozens of neon and holographic displays reflected off his crystalline shades. The whole street was a chaotic mishmash of light, but they were a pair of dark, distinctive blotches in the colorful maelstrom of humanity.

"I'm hungry, man," Burke muttered in turn. "And you play guitar while on duty all the time. Why can't I get something to snack on?"

"Because," Roth grunted again, tapping his Sergeant's bars. Burke snorted, but said nothing. The two were long-time partners, Burke only a year behind Roth in seniority.

"Look, it won't take more than a moment. We can take three minutes from our patrol. Not like anyone cares if we stop to get something to eat."

"Promotion review in three weeks, Tim," Roth replied. "I'm not letting some on-duty shirking block me from-"

He stopped as his goggles flashed an alert. A constant stream of data rolled down one side of the goggles, feeding them dispatching information and position of other patrols, but that was overridden by a high-level automated alert.

Roth frowned in annoyance. Ninety percent of the time the automated high-level alerts were from faulty equipment that received false positives. This one seemed no different.

Hell, this one was sending him a retina reading from a fugitive that had no data attached to it. Just a face and a quick camera shot of the target: a young woman with dark brown hair, pretty, delicate features, and brown eyes visible through shades that didn't block the latest version of the scanners. He'd seen this exact thing before when people wiped bounties but the data remained, causing them to chase after people who were actually no longer wanted for anything.

"Got a blank fugy," Roth grunted. "Thirty-two meters down."

"Want to forget we're in the area?" Burke replied. "Be a shame if no one was around to grab another wiped file."

"Yeah, let's go. I'm thinking fried dingo actually sounds good right now, and-"

"Patrol Nine-Seven-Alpha, please respond," came a woman's voice over their comm, and Roth cursed.

"Nine-Seven-Alpha, send it Dispatch," he replied, tapping his ear.

"Patrol retinal scans report contact with high-priority fugitive within your vicinity," she reported.

"Yeah, Dispatch, it's a blank," Roth replied. "Wiped file that no one cleared out."

"Negative, Nine-Seven-Alpha," Dispatch replied. "I checked. That is an active file, but she's classified by government order. Orders are to pursue and arrest. Consider armed and dangerous."

"Understood, Dispatch," Roth said, perking up. He brought his shotgun up to his shoulder, and people around them backed away. "Come on, Tim. We got a badguy to bag."

"You mean you've got a promotion to grab," Burke muttered. He blinked as the retinal scanners updated position. "Hey, she's getting closer. Seventeen meters away-"

There was a disturbance in the crowd, and they both raised their weapons, spreading out. A flick of Roth's thumb switched the shotgun to nonlethal stunner rounds.

"Persephone Police!" he shouted, advancing into the crowd. He though he saw a flash of movement in the crowd, people being shoved aside. Most of the people were suddenly scattering or dropping to the asphalt in response to the shout.

Except for a slender, feminine form weaving between bodies, heading directly toward him. His finger brushed the trigger, and then something flew out of the crowd toward him: a brightly-wrapped package pulled from the hands of a man stumbling away from the girl. It struck Roth's shotgun as he pulled the rigger, the barrel knocked sideways, and a blast of sonic stunners burst into the crowd to his right.

People fell in a heap in that direction, and he snapped the shotgun back toward the woman. Burke was shouting, but he didn't have a clear shot through the crowd of screaming people, leaving Roth alone. The policeman brought his shotgun back on target, but in the half-second it took him to do that she was _there_, in his face, one hand slapping the shotgun aside while the other knifed toward his throat.

She hit, and he gagged on the force of the blow, falling back. He could still breathe, but the blow staggered him, leaving Roth open as she stepped in closer. He saw a furious intensity in her shaded eyes right before the nameless girl struck him under the nose with a rising palm strike, knocking him off his feet.

His shotgun fell into waiting hands, and she spun, raising the weapon to her shoulder. It banged once more, and Burke went toppling to the road at the end of another burst of stunner rounds.

Ten seconds later, an all-points bulletin hit every Persephone police unit reporting officers down at Roth and Burke's location, and an armed and extremely dangerous fugitive had been sighted in the area.

The chase was on within moments.

* * *

His comm unit beeped, drawing him out of his doze, and William Ornstintz opened his eyes. He reached over, fumbling around the side of his bed for the device. He felt the woman beside him shifting and muttering as she awoke as well.

"Yeah, what?" Ornstintz muttered, wiping his eyes. What bloody hour was it? He'd spent weeks on this planet getting his body clock adjusted to local time, but it took longer these days. He was getting old. Old and pissed at whoever the hell had woken him up.

"Sir," said Captain Xen, head of his security detail. "We just got an alert from planetary security, flagged for you."

"What about?" Ornstintz asked, pushing back the spike of anger, curious.

"Mr. Coral sent us an image after the alert was issued, sir. I'm sending it now."

His comm unit beeped, indicating an image upload, and he held it up, frowning and checking the screen. A moment later, a face appeared on the display. His heart shot into his throat. He knew that face.

It was River Tam, on a street, holding _a freaking shotgun_ and blasting a police officer. Electrical sparks indicated a stunner load, but still. Timestamp put it not ten minutes ago, on a street three kilometers away.

"Holy shit," Ornstintz breathed. "Get . . . Get everyone on alert. I want direct access to local and continental police. I want her now!"

Xen acknowledged the order and closed the link.

"What was that?" Doctor Caroline Dupree asked, sitting up beside him. She was a light sleeper, and even with her hair disheveled, the naked woman was a lovely sight.

"Tam is here," he breathed. "One-Three-Seven is on the planet now."

Dupree's eyes widened, and he nodded, clambering to his feet. She did so as well.

"Eighteen months," he said, shaking his head. "She'd been on the loose for a year and a half, and now she's here, on our doorstep."

"Can we contain her?" Dupree asked as she got dressed.

His heart pounded like a chaingun, and he nodded.

"Yes," he said, and as soon as he pulled on his pants he keyed his comm to a secured channel. The face on the other end was unremarkable, belonging to a man with a blank expression and eyes like a stagnant pond.

"Mister Coral," Ornstintz said without preamble. "You've been notified of One-Three-Seven?"

"Yes sir," replied the calm, almost bored voice of the special agent. "Myself and Mister Wallace are mobilizing. We can intercept in seven minutes."

"No need," Ornstintz said, and a mirthless smile spread over his features. "Divert to the Perseus compound and pick up Lancelot. I want it deployed in the pursuit."

"Understood sir," the agent replied, and Ornstintz closed the line. Dupree was still getting dressed, and he glanced over at her. She was looking across the hotel room, eyes distant.

"You're deploying a Merlin against her," she said, and he nodded.

Dupree shivered a bit, which was telling. The good Doctor's psych profile listed her as having sociopathic tendencies - probably the only reason she was sharing a bed with him was because it was the quickest way to get promoted. If she was bothered by the Merlins, it was a testament to how frightening the things were.

"I know the risks," he said, pulling on the rest of his clothes. "I helped design them. I helped design _her_. I built Tam. I know what she can do, and I know what those things can do."

"Then you're worried she'll kill the Merlin?" Dupree asked, and Ornstintz laughed.

"No." He shook his head and smirked, with grim certainty. "Quite the opposite, if we're not careful."

* * *

...

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_ Time to find out what River's been up to in the months between. As lately, I've been trying to make prologues actual _prologues_ as opposed to "first chapters that are just called prologues". That's why this chapter is relatively short. I've also done what I did with "Mosaic," where I wrote out a lot of the actual arc before I was confident in publishing the first component.

I originally was going to name this arc "Asura," and there were going to be a lot more references to Hindu mythology, but I think I was throwing too many cultures together. (holy crap, there's not even a single Mandarin curse in this prologue, either!) River isn't really an Asura anyway, despite the fact that she is a wrathful character at this point in the story.

Oh, yes, River's _angry_. Previously, I made reference to "the weapon" which was, of course, the Academy training, the deadly, brutal, darker side of River. Now we've got...something else there as well. And we'll find out _why_ she's pissed, later.

The things River is wearing (the "grav-boosts") are a specific piece of tech I I came up with that I've been wanting to incorporate for a very long time. We've seen lots of relatively low-key technology (lasers, signal-catcher jammers, terraforming tech, etc) but this is a higher-end piece of Core technology. We've seen gravity manipulation technology before in the setting, and this is something that works off that same technology, just on an...individual scale.

Until next chapter . . . .


	75. Chapter One: Merlin

_Injuries suffered by the patient included: small caliber gunshot wound, bullet lodged in transverse mesocolon, just above inferior mesenteric vein (annotation: she's lucky it hit there; a couple centimeters lower and I don't think Hishin could have saved her), hairline facture in left tibia (blunt force trauma), sixth, seventh, and eighth ribs fractured (postulate blunt force trauma, partially healed; patient had taped them prior arrival), severe lacerations along upper back, shoulders, and left upper arm, multiple fractured vertebrae, blunt force head trauma, heavy bruising on forearms, jaw, and neck, and minor blistering of the epidermis due to ultraviolet radiation exposure._

_While examining the patient's cranial trauma, I noticed extensive but extremely light and thin scarring across the skull. I authorized detailed cranial scans, and we found extensive fusing of skull plates, indicating a massive amount of brain surgery. Scans of patient's brain show extensive scarring. Additional examination of the body showed extensive scarring, including defensive wounds on the arms and knife and burn wounds that appear to be recent and too carefully placed to be anything but deliberate. Ligature scarring around the wrists and ankles indicates old restraint marks. She also has several healed gunshot wounds._

_Whoever this girl is, she has been through hell._

* * *

_**Chapter One: Merlin**_

"Lancer Three-Nine-Seven, on-station," Lieutenant Snyder called over the radio as he brought the gunship around. Sensor data streamed over his helmet's display, twisted and shaped into three-dimensional images of metal and wire and thin strands of light. Data from hundreds of systems and subsystems passed before his eyes, a flood of information that took months of training just to read without getting nauseous.

That data was mostly standard reports from the gunship's systems, things that he was familiar enough with that simply seeing the scrolling patterns in his peripheral vision told him the status of the aircraft. The data he was focusing on came from the center of the display: a plot of the rooftops of Walrickson City, one of Persephone's densely populated urban expanses.

And shooting across those rooftops was a single contact, thermal shape indicating human. Small, female, tagged as his target. A fugitive who had been chased by the police for much of the last forty-five minutes, after knocking out two officers on the street and now being herded up to the top floor of the office building below.

Lieutenant Snyder had her locked into his gunship's weapons in a heartbeat, and sent the aircraft forward, angling around the building and readying his spotlights. He could have fired on her at that moment, but his weapons remained locked; he was a police officer, not a military pilot on a seek-and-destroy mission. The guns on his heavily-armed VTOL were intended for extreme, last-resort scenarios.

"Dispatch, Lancer Three-Nine-Seven, I have visual."

"Copy that, Lancer Three-Nine-Seven, maintain pursuit of target."

He frowned as the woman kept running along the rooftop of the building, a tall, narrow structure that took up an entire city block. Pursuit? She didn't have anywhere to go, and on the HUD he could see police on the rooftop behind her. There were flashes of pulsing light as they fired stunners, but she was too far away and weaving among rooftop fans and ventilation equipment. The stunner blasts dissipated and broke against the obstacles in their path.

"Repeat that, Dispatch," he called. "Pursuit? She's got nowhere to run."

"Orders from above, Lieutenant," came the reply.

"I don't see how this could count as pursuit," he said. "She's near the edge of the rooftop. They've got her pinned."

He started maneuvering the gunship lower, descending to roof height, so he could use its size and presence and brilliant lights as intimidation. He wouldn't be able to fly level; the buildings were too close together for that, less than half a dozen meters apart, but that was still too far apart for a jump, and-

"Oh."

He spoke those words as she reached the apex of a leap that was a little too high for human possibility. There was a flare of thermal energy on his HUD as she leapt off the rooftop toward the next on, bleeding off her back and boots.

"Dispatch, she's got grav-boosts," Snyder reported, and swung the gunship sideways as the girl hit the rooftop a dozen meters away from the previous one. "I am in pursuit."

"Glad you were prepared for it, Three-Nine-Seven," Dispatch replied, her voice a bit smug.

"Dispatch, proper response would break radio protocol," he replied, and kept the gunship chasing after the girl with illegal gravity-manipulation technology. He kept her targeted. "What's the rule on this one, Dispatch?"

"Top says we are not to engage, only pursue," came the reply, and he nodded. Most chases ended up that way: follow the criminal, keep eyes on them, and try to herd them into foot units to make an arrest as nonviolently as possible. "Chief's giving specific orders to not fire weapons under any circumstances, even if she's shooting back."

"Understood," Snyder replied with another frown. So, whoever they were chasing was wanted unharmed by someone higher up. Lovely. Might have something to do with those grav-boosts.

He hadn't been told exactly what the suspect was wanted for. He'd just gotten an alert that a fugitive was being pursued by police and moved to assist, but now he was curious. Million-cred personal gravity tech? That was the kind of thing reserved for military special forces, and here was some kid doing free-running with it.

"And she just jumped again, Dispatch," he reported. "We're not catching this one with foot units."

"Understood, Three-Nine-Seven," came the reply. "Airmobile units inbound. Just keep an eye on her."

"She's not escaping," he said with a confident grin.

* * *

The _wolves __**howled**__, throats_ of _engines and radio waves_, and closed in around her.

Fear found no purchase, despite the number _of hunters _closing in. The alert was not planet-wide; _voices from above_ kept it quiet. News cameras were blinded and gagged. Police were _hooded and sent blind_.

No one wanted to reveal what they were really hunting.

Boots pounded gravel rooftops, and her lungs burned **with tiny cinders**. Exhilaration ran through her veins. It was more than just adrenaline - it was _power_.

She wasn't running away. Not this time.

* * *

"The police are worse than impotent here," Mr. Coral remarked, staring at the screen. Mr. Wallace nodded as he guided the airship toward the target.

"She is toying with them," he mused. "Data indicates that she is adjusting her movements to the gunship's before he moves in response to her own."

"Does she have range to listen to the dispatcher?" Coral mused, and Wallace shook his head.

"Doubtful," he said, and shrugged. "Perhaps she has a police scanner and decryption system. Don't assume everything she does is due to telesthetic capacity."

"What's our ETA?" Coral asked, ignoring the quiet admonishment. Wallace was always more practical.

"Three minutes," Wallace said. Picking up the Merlin had let this chase stretch on for nearly an hour. His eyes moved over the screen. "Are those response teams?"

"Looks like an airmobile SWAT unit," Coral said with a nod, peering at his screen. "She won't be able to evade them." His fingers tapped on the screen, making sure every camera and sensor they had were pointed at the rooftop. "This should be interesting. Director will want any relevant combat data we can recover."

"They'll be more interested in the cargo," Wallace said. Coral nodded, waving a hand over the interface and bringing up another screen. His fingers danced over it, typing out a message using the haptic interface.

_Lancelot, ready?_

There was a pause, before a single glaring line of text responded:

**Lancelot standby: all systems nominal**

He typed a quick response.

_Target locked, uploading. ETA one minute._

**Acknowledged**

Coral settled back, heart thumping in anticipation. The first deployment. No one had expected it this early, but she was _here._ There was no way they could avoid this opportunity.

* * *

_Lines_ like spiderwebs, fine and narrow, _**stabbed into **__her chest_, and she grit her teeth. Weapons were being readied. Messages, verbal and mechanical, went back and forth.

_The weapon _demanded efficiency: cold, logical, commanding. _**The furnace **_demanded violence, harsh and fiery and hungry.

She ignored them. They were part of her, but did not _**control**_ her.

The last two and a half months had seen to that.

* * *

Captain Lena Fisher felt the wind buffet her as the doors on the transport slid open. Her eyes moved across the HUD in her helmet as she shouldered her submachinegun. She looked down across the gleaming spires of the city, and on her display she could see feeds from the rest of her six-man element. They all flashed her affirmative status, and she sent a single word across the team radio band:

"Drop!"

The airmobile SWAT unit leapt out of the transport, and their grav-packs cut in as they fell. She could sense the vibrations of the heavy pack on her backpack as it spun, absorbing and negating gravity to turn what would have been a lethal plummet to a controlled descent toward the rooftop.

As she fell, Captain Fisher swept the rooftop with her weapon's scope, and on her HUD she saw the approximate location of the suspect - data supplied by the gunship circling overhead and transmitted to her team's helmets via their transport. It was a more delicate setup than a military outfit, but law enforcement had the benefit of being much more in control of the situation and therefore not needing to be quite as rugged and decentralized.

She hit the rooftop with a light step, the grav-packs cutting her speed dramatically, though the near-zero-G churned her stomach slightly. As soon as she had both feet on the floor, the grav-pack cut back, and her weight returned with a sudden, familiar rush. She ignored it, intimately familiar with the sensation by now, and pivoted toward the suspect's position.

"Suspect is approaching," she reported, seeing the contact closing on the opposite side of a line of vents and air conditioners.

"Red, go east. Blue, we'll go west around those AC units. Stun only." They acknowledged, though the last order was really unnecessary. They knew the rules of engagement already, and procedure was always to use stun unless the situation demanded otherwise.

She led Blue Team around the hulking metal air conditioners, weapons shouldered. There was a flash of warning on her HUD as they ran through steam, parting it like black-clad wraiths, and she held up a hand.

"Suspect approaching," she called. She stepped forward, taking the lead as the contact drew closer. Fisher double-checked the map on her HUD and saw that the suspect was very close, less than fifteen meters away, and getting closer.

They rounded the air-conditioning unit, moving into a more open area of the rooftop, a vent ejecting steam into the air. They spread out, weapons shouldered, and saw the contact's icon ahead, on the far side of the steam cloud. Their weapons went up.

She leapt through the steam cloud, landing on the edge of the vent.

Fisher blinked. She knew the suspect was a female, but she didn't expect she would be so young. She was small and slender, with pale skin and dark hair. She was clad in a loose shirt and trousers, with heavy boots and a backpack, both made out of dark metals and plastic. It was a lighter rig than the heavier grav-packs the SWAT unit wore.

And with the zoom and clarity afforded by the HUD and the high-resolution screen inside her helmet, Fisher could clearly see the girl's dark eyes, blazing with determination and desperation in equal measure.

"Police!" she shouted. "On the ground!"

The girl dropped off the vent and charged, which was all they needed to justify force. They SWAT team fired, the underbarrel stunners shaking the air with half a dozen waves of concussive force that converged on the girl.

She stepped forward and to the side as she charged, dropped slightly, and kept going without any visible reaction.

Fisher blinked, and fired again. It took half a second to recharge the stunners, and they all opened fire at the same time, but the SWAT team's surprise turned the simultaneous wave of stunner blasts into a slightly staggered barrage, and the suspect shifted in place again.

Fisher shifted aim again, but by that time, the diminutive girl was in arm's reach. The SWAT officers closest to her shifted stances into takedown posture, and moved in close to strike down, grapple, and restrain her. There were six of them, in full response team armor, just a step down from riot gear or bomb disposal suits, and they were well-trained in close-quarters combat. Despite her surprise, Captain Fisher was confident that they could bring down one unarmed, crazy girl who seemed intent on getting into hand to hand, no matter how strangely agile.

Sergeant Labbe was the closest, and when the girl's arm moved he jerked as though in surprise, and started gasping. Fisher blinked in surprise as the girl flowed around him, lights on the grav-boosts blazing, and she leapt past the choking officer. She hadn't even seen the suspect strike. Corporal Sankaran stepped into her path, weapon swinging down in an overhead smash, but in mid-step the girl reversed direction, hopping back on one foot, and the other lashed up into his helmet with blurring speed over his weapon precisely as he brought the buttstock down. He flew backwards, smacked silly by the impact.

Two more Red Team officers, Borol and Cluggan, came at her from opposite sides as she brought her foot back down. Their submachineguns swung down in brutal but effective stock-strikes, but the girl burst into motion as soon as both of her feet were on the ground and a split-second before they impacted. She ducked and stepped back, spreading her legs out and going underneath both officers' blows, twisting out of their reach. She put both hands on the roof, legs curling underneath her, and she sprang up and back.

Sergeant Labbe, still standing and gasping from what had to be a staggering throat punch, found himself becoming a two-hundred and fifty pound springboard for a ninety-pound girl. She planted her feet on his back and kicked off, throwing him down to the ground, and went between the two officers. She spun in mid-air, legs lashing out and slamming into both officer's helmets and sending them toppling backward.

Fisher and Sergeant Gipson were the only two officers still standing after three seconds, and by that point they were in arm's reach. Fisher struck with horrified desperation, not sure what the hell she was dealing with, and the girl flowed underneath her buttstock. Fisher thought for a moment that the girl had started moving before she'd even swung, but any further ponderings were cut short as the girl rose, and a fist struck her in the throat. Fisher jerked backwards, gasping from the impact to her throat, and a moment later a boot slammed into the side of her head.

* * *

That was . . . _startling_.

Defeating two police officers in the street was one thing. Men and women with instruction and armor and preparation shouldn't have been so effortless to leave battered and bloody but alive.

_The weapon _gave her direction, but not all advice followed. Lethal points were bypassed in favor of nonlethal.

_**The furnace**_, so new and savage, lent her power, but she choked back **the flames **lest they burn the police around her.

They were obstacles. Not the enemy.

The _song_ that Rashid-Beard-_Old Man __**Kickass**_had taught her coursed through River's blood, and with it, she flowed around their attacks, striking at weaknesses and bringing down figures twice her weight and clad in armor plating that could repel machinegun fire. They fell around her, and once again she felt that _**old fear**_: not of her hunters, but _of herself_.

If _**the furnace **_burned too bright and too hard, if _wrath and hate _broke free from discipline, what could she do?

* * *

"She went through them like tissue," Coral whispered, amazed. Wallace nodded.

"She's improved," he said. "Did you see when the SWAT team fired on her? She was moving in the dead spaces between each stunner blast. She plotted out the firing angles, figured out where they would be shooting, and dodged them before they even fired."

He let a slight smile stretched over his face in appreciation.

"She probably picked that precise spot to appear just to make sure they were firing at the right angles for her to avoid them."

Coral nodded, a bit of sweat beading on his face. If that was true, if she had improved that much, then could Lancelot be enough? If the reports regarding that incident on the Rim were accurate, she'd killed at least one of _them_ in close-quarters, despite being Blanks with powered armor.

One way to find out.

_Lancelot, deploying now._

**Acknowledgement**

* * *

"Holy hell. Blue Team is down, repeat, Blue Team is now down," Snyder said, his voice equal parts worried and amazed. The second SWAT unit hadn't lasted even as long as the first. But as far as he could tell, all of them were still moving. Still alive.

Not only had she dropped two full SWAT units, but she had done so with nonlethal force, while _unarmed_.

Holy hell.

He double-checked his trackers, and kept his weapons locked on the girl as she ran past the groaning, prone forms of six more police officers in black armor and grav-packs, and ran for the edge of the rooftop and the next building. He had a good lock, but still no clearance to use even smoke grenades.

Green and Gold Teams were on the roof, and Green Team was moving into her path. They fired their stunners, and she . . . well, she dodged them. All of them. _Somehow_.

Seven seconds later, Green Team were all on the ground, with at least a couple of broken limbs.

"Dispatch," he called. "You better make a choice now." He managed a grin. "Because I think I might be rooting for this girl."

"Fifteen bits says she'll make two more roofs, uh, wait. Scratch that, acknowledged," Dispatch replied, correcting herself. "Standby, additional units moving into the area."

"Understood, Dispatch," Snyder said. "I am maintaining pursuit." He paused. Gold had made contact and were now firing. "I'll put twenty on three roofs."

The screen lit up several seconds later with a new contact: a small transport. Lieutenant Snyder watched in confusion as it came around toward the next rooftop, which the girl was moving towards now that she finished beating down Gold Team. The light transport hovered over the roof, and as she leapt into the air, the side of it opened up.

A man dropped down. Straight down for fifteen meters, with no apparent grav-pack. He hit the roof in a crouch, and stood up with no obvious sign that he had been injured.

"What."

As if in response to his punctuation-free question, every feed went black.

"What the hell?" he said, looking around the cockpit and quickly activating auto-hover. Every single sensor on his gunship went dead all at once.

"What the fuck is happening?" he shouted.

* * *

_Gravity_ wrapped around her and _turned deadly leaps_ into glorious _leaps of faith._

She descended, swiftly but with twisting bands of safety, and hit the gravel on the roof. Muscles flexed, _crouching_ ensued. Pain _flowed_ around her wrists, trailing back to the _**punch-clocks **_that she'd _**punched**_.

One part regretted having to do that. The rest of her . . . "regret" was not so applicable.

_The weapon _wanted more than just nonlethal force, but _the weapon _was caged and _**the furnace**_ was contained.

She had that much to thank the Doctor for.

The _dagger-lines _that described the vectors of the incoming SWAT teams were vanishing, which was confusing. She began formulating scenarios as she pushed off from her crouch and kept running. Perhaps she was proving too troublesome. She plotted faking an injury to draw them in. That would make sense; even a twisted ankle could plausibly slow her down.

Then the roof shook, and

_**something new**_

stood up.

She ground to a halt, and her heart began machinegunning blood through her veins, even more than it had already. This _**new**_ thing was unfamiliar: a shape and a _twisted slurry _of _**noise and thought **_that she had never seen before, and that triggered fear and anxiety and curiosity, all _prancing_ and _spinning_ around her.

The _**something new**_ began to get closer, separated from her by cooling and rotary systems. She heard engines above, and her eyes flicked up, searching.

_**Empty**_ hung above, in two forms, and _shudders_ went through her muscles, ignoring the **orders** of the brain. The body was so damned treacherous sometimes.

Fists clenched, _**the furnace **_flaring up, and she straightened now that they had shown.

About time.

_**The something new**_ leapt up on top of an air-conditioner twenty meters away,a nd her eyes flicked to it.

It wasn't _**empty**_. It was _**glowing**_, bright enough that she couldn't read _its books_, echoing _voices_ _**drowning out its noises**_.

Neither face nor skin was visible, sheathed in metal and ceramic. _Power_ flowed through circuits, both _**above and below **_the _dermal ocean_, weaving through bone and muscle. Electricity _screamed __**through brain cells **__and tissue_, flowing_ and __**sparking**__ and gleaming __so bright_ she couldn't see any part of him.

For the barest moment, the _light_ dimmed, as he stepped off the metal slab and strode toward her. In the _dimming glow_, she saw one **word** in all of his _pages_, echoing over and over again so loudly that she had to wince, the **taste of the word **_sliding_ _**and burning **_through her skin:

_**Lancelot**_.

Somewhere between the beginning of the word and the end of it, between the start of the processing of that _**blaze**_ of mental identity and the conclusion of her analysis of it, he moved.

And his fist drove into her stomach.

Air _leapt_ from her lungs. Stars illuminated the night inside of her eyes.

_bad, bad, __**bad, very **__**very very bad **_**bad **_bad_

_Recover. Do not react! You are not a machine!_

She slid away, legs recovering underneath her as he tried grappling her arm with _metallic sinews_. Her arms twisted and flowed out of his grasp, and she skittered backward out of his reach. Grav-boosts flared, and she became lighter, _sharper, faster_.

Lancelot paused as she escaped his grasp, and _**light**_ filtered around him.

The _**illumination**_ dimmed again, and _a boy _**screamed**_, __**needles**__ cutting into his brain before they __bother with anesthetic__-_

She gasped, and a hand wrapped around her throat. Something _**bubbled**_ in her, and then he squeezed. _Blackness and pain _shot up through her throat, and she kicked and pushed. Feet felt nothing as his arm elevated her.

He _**vibrated**_ again, and

"Weak."

_Disgust. __Rage__. __**Hate**__._

_Searing __**spikes**__ screamed_ through his arm and into her brain. **Vile, destructive **_**colors**_ and _blades_ drove through her own _rivers of thought and emotion_. **Murder** rippled along his fingers. _Truthful intention etched _into her brain with _lasers of __**malicious purpose**_**.**

He wanted her dead.

_Light_ of different colors and intensity poured through him while he squeezed, and he stopped tightening his grip. There was a groan, deep in his chest, a mutter of defiance as the _**order**_ permeated his circuits, and he loosened his grip.

His groin was not quite as well-armored as the rest of him.

He grunted, **surprise** and **pain** rolling off his head and shoulders, and she went to the ground, gasping for breath. Reflex and fear _lent her wings_, hauling her to her feet, and she stepped backward, toes smarting from the kick.

_Sure would be nice if we had some grenades, don't ya think?_

That _echo-__**memory**__-voice-__**person**_seeded strength, and in a heartbeat it _flowered_. She stood, angling her body, and began thinking, _plotting_, predicting, analyzing. Lancelot drew himself up, towering over her in gray armor and faceless mask, and she saw **hate** boil out of sheathed nostrils, _dragonfire from a knight's name_.

The _**light**_ shining from his mind _dimmed_ again, and she braced for

**Raw hate, screaming through him**_**, **__as _he watched _her_ and _him_ talking on the other side of the cafeteria, and _**HOW DARE SHE HAVE A SMILE**_

River was on her knees, muscles weak and shaking, sobbing and throat raw from a _scream_ echoing in her ears. River threw herself up, moving to defend, when _force and iron-strong limbs _coiled around her.

His arm, around her neck, choking. Another arm, grabbing her wrist, wrenching it around. Legs, locked around her knees. Rooftop, slamming up into her nose and mouth. His face, inches from the back of her head, separated by metal and ceramic plating and _electronic eyes._

**Hate, **seeping into her skin. A whisper**, ****threatpromise**_**fact**_

"Suffer."

He squeezed. Her vision swam, darkness cutting into her, flooding her awareness.

_Another __command__-light-voice_ from above.

He released her. Her legs and arms limp and dark, refusing to respond.

Two _empties_, close, _blue hands _ready.

_Cold metal_, on wrists and ankles. Grav-boosts, stripped away.

That _**hate**_ hung over her, and warmth splashed over her features as they pulled her off the ground _with blue hands_. She slumped as they dragged her, and tried to make what boiled off of Lancelot wash away.

Cold metal floor. Doors sealing. A black hood.

**Darkness** and _**hate**_ were her cellmates as they took her away.

_It doesn't go smooth_, a half-_memory-echo-voice _murmured. _Why can't it ever go smooth?_

* * *

_**...**  
_

* * *

_**Author's Notes:** _This chapter was originally intended to be the prologue for this story, but I realized it was getting too long, and a prologue that provided a bit more context would work better, so I split things up and rewrote and added more material. Which describes ninety percent of my writing in general.

This chapter is also the first real introduction to the Merlins. I've actually been building up to this for a while; in fact, this entire story-episode has been built up to for a while, and is the rough halfway point for the overarching plotline of this "season." The introduction of the Merlins represents the stakes getting bigger and the threats becoming more coherent and dangerous.

The rest of this story-episode is going to see a lot of flashbacks. We're going to find out what River went through at Rashid's (aka Old-Man-Kickass') hospital, and why she came out the other side with the "furnace" burning in her.

Until next chapter . . . .


	76. Chapter Two: Sunlight

_Careful analysis of scans regarding the patient's brain back up my initial assessment. The scarring, while extensive, is very deliberate. Certain nerve clusters were targeted for removal or modification. This explains her questionable mental state, but what is most remarkable is not what was removed._

_It is what was added._

_**Chapter Two: Sunlight**_

* * *

_Two months ago_

* * *

River stared at the ceiling, and did battle with **the terrible**_**, scaly **_**dragon **that haunted her life over the last week: _**Boredom**_.

_**Boredom**_ was an evil creature. It was always waiting to pounce, and it fell on her more easily than others when she had nothing to do. _Serenity _always had _something_ to do, even if it was just cleanup and maintenance on Mal's _beloved pile of rust and totally-not-prayers._

But a hospital was a nest for _**Boredom**_, especially when she couldn't even stand up due to her mending leg.

Assumptions were that it was a hairline fracture. Concussion had proven those assumptions _flawed_, and now a metal cuff that _danced with electricity and __**fractal repair programming**_ wrapped around her broken shin, repairing the bone damage swiftly.

Not swift enough to fend off _**Boredom**_. _Disgusting creature_.

She'd always figured she could avoid _**Boredom**_ with mathematical problems or philosophical conundrums or other mental exercises. But that was a faulty assumption; within half a day _**Boredom**_ had _swallowed_ such musings, and _the itch _to get up and do something physical had taken over.

She'd already mapped the entire hospital from her bed. That took less than a day, though most of the actual _purpose_ of the hospital's many rooms and attached buildings had eluded her. The whole of the place was _drenched_ in the usual sensations of a house of healing: _pain, worry, frantic fear, hope, determination, _and_ a __**low-grade **__reek__ of death and sadness._ The latter two were weaker than usual; this was not a general hospital like in a Core or Border world. Lives came here to _grow longer_, not to _**end in comfort**_.

But at the same time, there were other _smells _and _tastes_, from the far end of the hospital: _happiness, exertion, __**competitive spirit**_. There was **pain**, but the beneficial kind, the pain that accompanied growth and strength. She could feel _bursts of physical agony_, **rapid-fire **and **brutal**, but there was no malice or true anger, just a desire to overcome, to prove one's capability.

The hospital, it seemed, did more than just _heal_.

And these sensations just made _**Boredom**_an even fiercer foe.

She heard him coming down the hall, well before the footsteps reached her, and there was an _expectation_ _swirling_ ahead of him. He had good news. She perked up, _**Boredom **_receding with the _sword-stroke of interest _to his _**scaly, disgusting face**_, and she was sitting up as best she could with her leg in traction when he opened the door.

"Doctor Beard?" she called as he walked in, and a frown _nested _in his face.

She'd called him "Dr. al-Rashid" at first, but the old, kindly doctor had tried to correct her, which ended up with a very long discussion on Arabic naming conventions and historical precedent, during which time _**Boredom**_roared up and swallowed her train of thought. It didn't normally do that, so it might have been the _morphine _helping things along. Either way, she'd tagged him "Dr. Beard" on account of the massive beard he wore and called it a day.

"You could at least come up with a more dignified nickname," he said in his booming voice.

"Doctor Kickass?" she suggested, and the frown on his face faded in reaction to her smile. He walked over to her bed, looking at the flash paper chart on his clipboard. He checked the mending cuff on her leg, tapped the board a few times to change displayed data, and nodded.

It was all show, of course, because he was _transmitting intention _on all frequencies.

"It looks healed," he said, and pressed a few keys on the cuff's interface. "Let me get this off and we can test your leg to see if there's any further pain."

"I told you it was healed two days ago," she muttered as the cuff hissed and released. Cool air _tickled _her leg, and her toes flexed a few times.

"I am the doctor, River," Beardy replied with cheerful admonishment. "I think I'd know better than you."

River crossed her arms as he lowered her leg. He had the doctorate, but _she_ had the _moon-brain superpowers_. She'd known she could walk on her leg two days ago. Maybe not perfectly, but if they took it off earlier should at least walk around instead of grappling with **Boredom**.

"Alright, then," he said after a moment, releasing her leg from traction, and she levered herself around. "Stand up. _Carefully_."

The last word halted her, and she scowled again. Okay, maybe she _was_ moving too quickly, but she _had_ to get up. Legs twisted around, body aligning to a sitting position, and bare feet touched _glorious, cold floor_. Muscles that had been mostly still for a week worked and flexed, and she rose to her feet.

_Wobbly_

Dr. Beard caught her arm, _worry flickering _over him and _backlighting concern_. River sought out _**and bargained with **__equilibrium_, and _secured _it with waved arms. Clumsiness - **alien sensation -**_ coiled _around her for several seconds until she _chased it away_.

"Does it hurt?" Beardy asked, and she _analyzed_. Shaking. _Hair strands in mouth_. Oops.

"No, no pain," she said, extracting her hair from her teeth.

"Walk on it."

She paced, putting weight on the injured leg. No pain. _Boredom _circled around the room, waiting to strike, but kept at bay at the moment.

"No pain," she repeated, and he nodded. **Satisfaction mantled **his shoulders.

"Excellent," he said, smiling. "I might be able to discharge you soon."

_Buts_, _**millions and millions **_of them, circled around his head, and she frowned, sitting down on a chair across the room. _Laertes was a comfort _via proximity, sitting on the shelf close at hand. She understood that she was not a prisoner, but _perfect comprehension _was just out of reach. The sword was a fine reminder.

"But not yet," she said, and his smile waned. Concern _**surged**_ around him, merging with the _buts_.

"I do have other concerns," Beardy said, sitting down in another chair. Music, light strings and flutes, wafted through the open window, and he glanced out at the sunlight streaming down into the room.

River _plotted _the concerns, _drawing a map_ of his worries and concerns about her, and then _**superimposing them over**_ the man who sat across from her. _Sincerity _and _honesty _were resonant; they had _**rolled off him **_every time he spoke. He did care about her, with **concern **_**weaving **_into every fiber of his being. There was _darkness _in him and things he kept hidden, and she did not dig them out. Everyone had secrets, and it was impolite to hunt for them.

But she understood the _**who**_, and that was what mattered.

And River was tired. Tired of being afraid, of hiding, of wrestling with herself. Simon _tried_, but . . . Maybe he was too close to really help. She needed some distance, to expose issues to _long-range emotional artillery_.

"What concerns?" she asked, and knew what he was going to ask. The medical diagrams _sprang about _in his head, showing detailed studies of her scars with questions appended to them.

"I found many more injuries on you beyond what you were brought in for," he said. "Defensive wounds. Gunshot wounds." He paused, and she closed her eyes. He danced around words, speaking gently. "Signs of abuse."

"Torture and restraint." She took the words and _twisted_ them into a truer, dirtier form.

"Yes," he said, quietly. He was trying to be gentle, and she appreciated that. But he also needed to know, and she _needed_ to tell him. To tell someone who wasn't part of her family, who wasn't familiar with what had been done.

"Can we walk?" she asked, opening her eyes. They felt warm, and she had to wipe them. Her fingers came away damp.

"Yes," he said, standing. "Outside?"

Sunlight would make it easier to remember. To drag the _ugly_ and the **cold** out into the open.

"In the sun, yes," she managed, and forced herself to her feet.

* * *

The hospital campus lounged across the small valley, filling the space between two hills covered in low green scrub. The air was hot but clear - no dust, not like in the desert where she'd crashed. Solar positions indicated they had traveled several hundred kilometers northwest, accounting for the change in climate.

That information _filed itself _as they walked down cobblestone paths, River wearing a one-piece patient's gown and some scrubs. It was vaguely similar to apparel associated with **uglier timeframes**, but it smelled of more positive things like _hope _and _safety _instead of **pain **and **despair**. She insisted on bare feet, her toes _sliding _along the stone and deftly evading the sharp bits, _reading _the footprints of those who had passed before.

They talked, and she _remembered_.

"The first thing you must know," she said, the words steady and lucid. It was like they had always been there, formed and ready, instead of constructed from her fractured mind. "There is a price on my head."

She had to tell him that much. If someone found her, if the pirates had sent off her description, if the Blue Hands tracked her ship . . . He and the people here had to know.

"I am not surprised," Dr. Beard replied. "But do not fear. I care little for bounties."

_Honesty_. _**Relief **_washed over her, and she looked away, warmth again gathering in her eyes.

"Not . . ." Pause. _Throat-clearing_. "Not worried about that," she managed. It was only a slight lie. "I can take care of myself. Worried about you."

"We can also take care of ourselves," Rashid - no, _Doctor Beard_, darn it - said, a smile on his face that echoed his confidence. "You are combat-trained. That is related to the bounty?"

"Yes," she said. She glanced down at her forearms, seeing the little white scars that had accumulated, each one _**dirty **_with painful memories.

"Tell me," he said, his words gentle, and did as he bid.

"I am insane," she murmured. "You understand that, yes?"

"Admission belies madness," he replied. "If you were insane, you would not know it. And if you know you are insane, you can counteract it."

River frowned. She knew the words, academically, but shook her head.

"Are you really a doctor?"

"Minored in philosophy," he replied with a smile. "Regrettably."

"Back on target," she said, glowering. "The scars on my skull. Neural damage." She paused, and made a show of frowning in thought. "You know that, don't you?"

"Yes, I do," he said, a bit quieter. "I noticed them while examining your head injury. I authorized brain scans to make sure there was no permanent or long-term damage." He was silent for a moment. "I found none, at least caused by the concussion."

_Whys _orbited around him, and she took a long, deep breath.

"From the beginning," she murmured. "From . . . Cotton dresses and pigtails and schoolwork and my brother. Home."

It was a game of truth and evasion. She spoke of her childhood on Osiris, of her family, and of her schooling. That would lead to the Academy. That led to _**screaming and cutting**_. The sunlight on her hair and shoulders made it easier to remember.

His reaction was _telling_. She could see _horror _and _**concern **__battling about his neck and shoulders_, _tangling _among his beard, but among them were _**questions **_and _**worry**_. He would ask, and she would answer, but twisted and _dodged _around any hints of her witchery.

There was enough ugliness in the mental conditioning and martial training to satisfy his demand to know _why_. He needed to know out of revulsion, out of anger, out of outrage, and those emotions sent her heart beating faster - not out of _fear_, but out of _**empathy**_. His reaction echoed hers; _textures _were different, but **underlying foundation **was the same.

She spoke, working her way through the **darkness**, until _light _descended and _pulled her away into the Black_. To _Serenity_. She kept up the _game of evasion_, careful to not tell too much about her new family. Dr. Beard was a good man, but the less he knew about her family, the better for everyone.

_Ease _settled over her as they spoke. She expected she would start crying or suffer some other emotional breakdown, but nothing came beyond a exhausting relief as she _weaved a portrait _of her past, and he listened and responded. Maybe she'd spent enough pain already that it didn't hurt as much anymore.

They sat on a bench under a tree two hours later, the sun high overhead, drinking tea a worker had brought out to them. Her eyes and ears constantly _searched _as they spoke, rarely focusing on Beardy or his deep, cathedral voice. She counted hospital staff, their roles and purposes, and the patients they handled. She collated data as they talked, compiling information and coming to conclusions.

"The tale you tell is fantastic," he said. "But . . . ."

That _word _hovered in the air, _belief and sincerity wrapped around_ it. He believed her story, despite how strange it was.

"I set up my hospital out here," he said, "Because it was away from the Alliance." He stared across the courtyard for a moment. "The Unification War cost me a nephew and two sons," he added. "I do not doubt your tale. It is not beyond them."

She nodded, relieved. He was silent for a few moments, and her _churning _mind reached a definitive conclusion.

"This is more than a primary care facility," she said abruptly, and Rashid blinked.

"Yes, indeed," he said. He settled back, not asking how she had figured that out. "One part of the campus serves as a hospital for emergency or serious medical cases. Like yours. It is the only free hospital on the planet."

"It is too slow here," she said, shaking her head. "Core hospitals are riots. So many people. So much pain and fear."

"The population of this world is too scattered," Beard said, and _regret _circled his brow, **cold **and _blue_. "Not enough fast transport. Most of my students and fellow doctors travel town to town. The one that brought you here was one such doctor. Another part is a school for medical students that handles diagnosis and disease treatment. Doctor Casa runs that section, but . . ." he chuckled. "I doubt you would like to meet that one."

She frowned, collating more information about the layout. Her ears drifted to the _sounds _coming from the western part of the campus, the _exertions _of physical labor and _echoes _of competition and _**welcomed pain. **__All of that, interspersed with calmness, observation, serenity, like_a **blanket** but _**thicker and deeper**_.

"Therapy," River said, and Beard-Rashid nodded again.

"We conduct physical and mental therapy here as well as primary and emergency care," he said.

"That's why you wanted to talk so much," she said, and he nodded. "Why?"

That was a question that made him pause, and he pondered over it for a moment, _pages rustling_ quietly in his books. He reached down and took her arm in gentle fingers, and held it up. She could see the old defensive wounds, nearly invisible scars on her forearms. Track marks where they had injected her with tiny needles dotted the inside of her elbow.

"The body heals," he said, looking down at her scars, and he set the arm down. He brushed the side of his head, parting salt-and-pepper hair. "But every physical scar leaves a mental wound, and the mind is not always so resilient."

She remembered _**losing control**_. She remembered **blood **from a man whose face she mangled into unrecognizable meat, splattered over her. Simon's horrified eyes.

"These . . . _people_ trained you to kill," he said quietly, and he met her eyes. They were sharp and observant, and she could see the _pieces of herself _that he saw, _**flickering **_about his head. "They stole years of your life, breaking you down into a weapon. This is nothing new in the history of man, but that makes it no less evil."

He squeezed her hand.

"You want control over your life, River. You want to move on."

"I _have_ moved on," she murmured, and broke his gaze. "I am functional."

"You have resolved to control this, but you don't know _how_," he said, and she nodded. Simon's shocked expression when she shot him came back to her, unbidden, and she couldn't shake it. Warmth flooded her eyes, and she squeezed them shut.

She had survived and moved on from her memories of the Academy, but at that moment, she realized what was cutting into her: not memory of what _was done to her_, but memory of _what she had done_.

"I will help you with this."

She opened her eyes, and saw the redness in them, reflected in Doctor Beard's _mind-flickers. _

_Why?_

She must have spoken that, because he smiled, and took her hand in gentle fingers that echoed of concern and _grandfathers _and, distantly, a weary, blue-eyed man who embraced the sky.

"Because it is what I do, River."

* * *

_Present Day_

* * *

William Ornstintz hurried down the hallway toward the distant airpad, speaking quickly into his earpiece. He was sweating in excitement as he moved, Dupree following close behind with her heavy medical bag and briefcase.

"You're certain?" Ornstintz asked, wiping his brow. His hands trembled. "They have her in custody?"

"Yes, sir," replied Mr. Coral, his tone vaguely impatient. "I loaded her into the containment unit personally."

"She's restrained, yes?" Ornstintz asked. His dark hair was still mussed from being awoken so abruptly. She, on the other hand, looked as distractingly lovely as always. "Tam is locked down? Completely?"

"Yes," Coral answered. "We made certain of that."

"No concealed weapons?" Ornstintz demanded. "I mean, Jesus Christ, you saw the videos. She could kill an entire garrison with a teacup."

"She has been searched, sir," Coral said. "Aside from those gravity-boosters, she was completely unarmed."

"Took down four SWAT teams singlehandedly," Dupree muttered, and Ornstintz nodded.

"We are transporting her to the Borin Memorial Hospital," Coral continued.

"Not the military base?" Ornstintz asked as they reached the airpad doors. A bodyguard in dark blue armor and a black cap stood outside, rifle in hand, scanning the area with sensors set into his sunglasses. "Or a police station?"

"We do not _own_ a military base or a police station," Coral pointed out. "Borin Memorial Hospital is much more discreet. We can easily clear out a laboratory floor for containment."

"Yes, yes, you're right." Ornstintz paused, exhaling. "This is just . . . very surprising. Update me when she arrives there."

"Yes, sir," the agent replied, and the line went dead. Ornstintz stood outside the airpad, his private shuttle being prepared, and looked to Doctor Dupree. The short, dark-haired woman was a recent addition to his staff, but she knew her stuff, her background check was impeccable, and the diagnosis for sociopathy just made her even more perfect for the job of being his assistant. She watched him as he breathed a few times, getting his excitement back under control.

"She's _here_," he said, shaking his head. "We've been hunting her for more than a year, and she suddenly shows up here, of all places."

"The timing is troubling," Dupree said. "Sir, I doubt it is a coincidence that she showed up now."

"On Persephone?" he asked. "Her crew is supposed to have contacts here. Maybe she's been hiding here since what happened on Sirocco." He shook his head. "It's not relevant, anyway."

"Sir, you can't ignore the possibility that her presence, and yours, was not a coincidence," she said. "You were scheduled to arrive here months ago. No one told us it was for the testing of the seventh Merlin unit, but-"

"That's what's got you on edge, Carol?" Ornstintz asked, and he smiled. He took it as a good sign that she was afraid of the Merlins.

"The timing, sir," she said, shaking her head. "You were there. She remembers you. She didn't show up here to play tag with police on Persephone rooftops."

"You think she came here to kill me?" Ornstintz asked, and Dupree nodded.

The thought was troubling. He could only imagine what would have happened if she hadn't been spotted on street-level retinal scan. The girl sliding through his apartment like a ghost, a silenced pistol or knife or garrote ready. And those grav-boosts . . . they would have been deadly as part of an assassination, and not just for speed.

The thought of her coming to kill him did send a shiver down his spine, but it also sent a spike of anger through him as well. She'd come here to kill _him?_ William Ornstintz? Operations Director for the Cerberus project? The man who _made_ her into what she was now?

He clenched his fists, knuckles going white.

River Tam, One-Three-Seven, needed to learn her damned place.

He stepped outside, tapping the bodyguard on the shoulder.

"Tell the pilot to prepare a course for Borin Memorial Hospital," he shouted over the whirring engines. He nodded and started toward the shuttle, one hand holding his cap in place.

"Sir?" Dupree asked, stepping out behind him.

"We're going to conduct an interview with the subject," Ornstintz said, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. "I want you to examine her. I will question her. We'll see how she's progressed in the last year."

"We can do that back at the-"

"_Quiet_, Doctor," he snapped, and then forced himself to calm down. "I _need _to know. I am not letting that little lunatic back inside the Academy until I, _personally_, have evaluated the risk. She's killed countless personnel already. No one else dies at her hands."

He paused, thinking.

"Send a message to the agents. I want Lancelot on standby," he said, wiping his brow again. "But keep it outside the hospital, we're going to cause enough stir just clearing a lab sector for her. There's another Merlin on the other side of the planet. I forgot the name. I want it prepped and on standby."

"Yes, sir," she replied, and activated her earpiece. He watched her speak into the communicator for a moment, and smiled. Why couldn't everyone be as competent or loyal as her?

He turned back to the shuttle, and saw the bodyguard running toward him. The man nodded, and Ornstintz smiled, imagining what the next few hours would be like.

He'd teach One-Three-Seven the consequences of fucking with him.

* * *

_Two months ago_

* * *

"You said physical therapy."

It had _sounded _like physical therapy when he said it. It _**tasted **_like physical therapy in the air, albeit with _competitive overtones_.

Someone had decided physical therapy involved swords.

Wooden practice swords, some curved, others straight weaved and cracked against both _dead plant matter and living animal matter_, the latter accompanied by **spikes **of pain and surges of _triumph and __**satisfaction**_. There were twenty-three circles marked in the dirt of the fighting pit, and in each one were people sparring, some with practice blades, others with staves, others bare handed.

"Physical therapy and mental therapy are often intertwined," Doctor Rashid-Beard said as they moved with exceptional languidness and idle footsteps and other **similes for slowness** along a walkway overlooking the training area. Down below, people who were somewhere between physical therapists and drill instructors moved among the "patients," calling out warnings or advice as the people sparred.

"There is nothing more physically demanding than combat," he continued. "And nothing more reaffirming or satisfying as facing a friend in well-intentioned battle and testing your limits."

"You heal people and then beat them with sticks," River observed, and he chuckled.

"It's not madness if it works," he replied.

"No, it's still madness," she said, and managed a smile. "But the good kind."

The people below were of all ages and genders. She saw one older man, possibly in his sixties - with modern anti-aging techniques, it was uncertain - sparring with a much younger man and holding his own. Women dueled men in a couple of rings, and in a couple she saw team matches, with pairs or trios facing off.

Seeing all of these people training brought back **memories**. Hard fights on training mats, drill instructors shouting at her, demanding she fight better, harder. There was no teaching, in that place; the techniques were simply _there_, in her mind, and they pushed her into _**accessing **_them, into bringing out the _weapon_ to use them.

Beard watched her as she took in the sights and sounds and compared them to her memories. They were not the **hardest **memories she possessed, but still painful. Yet . . . They did not hurt as much as she expected. Maybe it was his presence. Maybe it was the _satisfaction_, _**triumph**_, and _primal _**joy **she felt as the people below sparred.

"This isn't required, is it?" she asked as they walked, and he shook his head.

"Purely voluntary," he replied. "Some of them are patients with physical or mental problems and this is part of how they cope during the treatment. Others are long-term students. Martial students."

"You train in martial arts?" she asked, and he nodded.

"Many styles, several instructors," he said. "I have one personal style I have assembled from both blade and bare-handed methods. A mixture of sword, knife, and grappling and striking. Basis in an old Earth-That-Was style called Krav Maga, with some more modern and some much, much older methods." He shrugged. "It is as much mental as it is physical."

There was an _intonation _in his voice, a _path _that he gently tried to lead her down, using his words as the **bait**. River found herself following it, and her heart beat faster.

She looked down at the fighters in the pits, and watched the older man defeat his younger foe with a deft strike, a twist of the wrist, and a sweeping kick that threw him to the dirt. The _**satisfaction **_he felt washed over her, chased by _**good-natured laughter **_and an echo of _companionship_.

It was alien, but **intoxicating**.

"Teach me," she whispered, turning to the doctor.

"You are certain?" he asked, and she nodded.

"When I fight, it isn't me," she said, and the hardness threading through her words, curling around her, was startling. "It is what they _forced_ me to learn. This is something I _choose_. Something that is _mine_."

He nodded, a smile splitting his beard.

"Excellent."

* * *

_Present Day_

* * *

It was an examination room. Or it _should have been one._ Now it was _something else_. Something that _**sounded **_like a room where a doctor with _concern and knowledge _would check your vitals, instead twisted to a similar but **uglier **purpose.

_**The furnace **_burned low, snuffed by the _aftershocks _of Lancelot. She let the wrath simmer; it wouldn't help now, and even an echo of Lancelot's own **hate **sent icy spikes into the _spaces between vertebrae_. _The weapon _still _hissed _and _**thrashed **_in the _neural labyrinth_, a minotaur that scratched tactical maneuvers into the stone and offered them to her for approval.

None were viable. Not yet.

They'd removed the hood, but kept everything else. Two men - not police, paid too well, taught too well - stood at the door in blue and black uniforms, holding stunguns. She sat in a chair that _smelled like many people_, impatient, tinged with _worry _or _curiosity _or _**scaly boredom**_. If she _twitched_, their _colors flared and pages rustled, _so she kept still.

**Cold **touched the door, and a woman stepped in.

River closed her eyes, stilling herself as best she could, until harsh hands gripped her hair and pulled her head back. Probing eyes, _evaluative__**, hunting for secrets**_, scanned her. She kept from reading the **cold **woman's _pages _as best she could. She wore the mask of a doctor, but it was a lie.

"No obvious injuries," the false doctor's voice emerged, _silken_. River let her _**revulsion **_show - it was what they expected - and she flinched away from the woman's touch as if it were _**acid**_. Fingers reached up, forcing her eyes open, and a penlight stabbed into them.

"Dilation, but nothing indicating drugs. Fear response," she continued, releasing her head, and then moving behind her. Something _buzzed_, and River plucked the words out of the _air_.

_Check her wrists_.

"Her wrists are bare, sir, save the zips," the silken voice replied, but she took hold of River's hands and pulled her arms back. Probing eyes danced over the arms. "Some defensive cuts here, minor bleeding."

A _nod_. A guard fetched gauze and wipes and sanitizer, his motions a bit sullen. Cool alcohol and cotton wiped over her wrists and fingers, and she trembled at the touch.

"Her wrists are clean," the silken voice said. "Bandaging. Checking the legs."

River continued shaking as she was searched. It was _familiar_, but far from welcome. Memories of _cold analysis _in the dark places, in steel, sanitized rooms of white and light. The _silk _voice with the painful fingers probed her in dark places, and she removed her clothes to satisfy certainty.

River closed her eyes and endured. The _**clinical dispassion **_was the only facet that was bearable.

A hospital gown was wrapped around her as the silken voice finished.

"She's clean," the _silk _said, and hard hands grabbed her arms and hauled her to her feet. The _buzzing _again.

_Take her to the secure room._

River's heart pounded as they opened the door, put the hood back on, and dragged her outside.

Two lefts, a right. Distance traveled: seventeen meters. She plotted her precise position inside the hospital, located escape routes, and planned forty-three alternate routes of escape in the minute it took them to carry her to the next room. Sixteen armed men, two _empties_, one _**acid**_-_silken _woman, one massive _hun dan _douchebag.

The other, the Lancelot, was outside somewhere, lurking. **Hateful **and _**hungry**_.

She shivered again, and not from the men dragging her.

A door opened, deafening silence from its hydraulics, and a dark room swallowed her. A chair reached up and **seized **her, the men depositing their burden in its grip. Something hard and plastic jammed into her neck, promising pain of she fought, and her wrists became free for a moment.

_Therapy restraint chair_, it murmured through her skin, and the words were confirmed when they strapped her hands to solid metal and plastic arms. Ankles followed suit.

The men withdrew, leaving her strapped in the chair, hooded and in darkness.

She counted the seconds, controlling her breathing, and began running calculations to keep her brain active until-

The door opened again, and harsh lights turned on. The room filled with two empties, one _**acid**__-silk_, one douchebag, in that order. Douchebag drew closer, footsteps echoing with anger and satisfaction. Hands of _**burning ice **_grasped the hood and tore it off.

She looked up, through illumination that spread saltwater over her vision, and met his eyes.

"Well, well, I didn't really believe it," he said, and the _satisfaction _grew, becoming a cloak over his features, dripping and running into a pool on the floor around him.

"River Tam. One-Three-Seven. Back where she belongs."

William Ornstintz, Operations Director for the Cerberus initiative, and professional douchebag, leaned over her.

"You came here to kill me, didn't you?" he asked.

She turned away from his face, shivering.

Anger _**broke **_in a _**thunderclap**_, and he grabbed her hair, wrenching her head around.

"_Look at me!_" he shouted. She cringed from the voice and the _heat _and the _**fury**_, but looked back up, meeting his eyes. The _**fury **_boiling back there set the _**satisfaction **_cloak ablaze. _**Stress**_, **fear**, _worry_, and _elation_all fueled the volatile mix of emotions swirling in his _mental gas tank_.

"You came here to _kill me_, didn't you?" he asked again, fury simmering in his words, and she exhaled.

"Yes," River whispered, closing her eyes tight.

"And now look at you," he said with a snarl.

She shook her head, but the memories came back unbidden. His _rage_, his _**grip**_, flowed into her, and plunged back down into the ugly sea of **metal **and _**screaming**_.

"I know you're trying to plan how to escape," he said. "You're not going to get the chance to. You're alone, and these fine men in the powered armor will beat you to death in seconds if you twitch in a way I don't approve of."

He leaned down close, and hissed in her ear with a sickening burst of satisfaction.

"You're going back where you belon-"

His sentence was aborted. Unsurprising, really.

That happened when one's nose was being bitten.

Ornstintz recoiled, blood spurting, and a heartbeat later _blue-sheathed _hands struck, one grabbing her by the neck and the other punching her in the stomach. _Air burst _from her lungs, and her bite loosened.

He stepped back, grabbing his nose and gasping in _shock_. The Hands released her and stepped back, and she spat his blood on the floor.

"Saw that coming," the _**acid**_-_silk _woman murmured, and Ornstintz scowled. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his bloody nose; a glance showed that it wasn't serious. He pressed it to his face and glared at her.

River gave him a smile painted with his blood. He got his breathing back under control, and managed a rueful smile.

"Right," he said. "Rabid animals need to be muzzled. Thanks for reminding me."

He sat down on the other side of the table, still holding the cloth to his mangled nose.

"Let's get started, shall we?" he asked.

_Questions __**percolated **_in her mind, and _his pages __**danced back and forth**_. She had a hard time reading them, and his blood tasted foul. She spat again.

"Started with what?" she asked.

"The evaluation process," he replied. "I need to determine if I can safely bring you back."

"Die first," she hissed.

"We'll see, little girl," he replied, settling back in his chair, and a **inky serpent **smelling of _**malicious glee and brimstone cruelty **_settled around his shoulders. "We'll see."

* * *

...

* * *

_**Author's Notes:** _I was originally going to have the flashbacks be in italics like with previous stories, but it looked...off to have italicized Riverthink.

A lot is going to be revealed in the next few chapters, as Ornstintz and Rashid both push River, but in very different directions, and she struggles to find herself. But make no mistake here: River may be confident, angry, and possess strong conviction, but that doesn't make her any more sane. It just means that she's more dangerous. We're delving deeper into the extensive list of neuroses she's managed to acquire in record time thanks to her three-year mind-ripping experience.

Until next chapter...


	77. Chapter Three: Sand

_River has quite eagerly responded to offers to join the students for physical therapy and training. She is adapting to it quite well, though the areas she seems most interested in are the mental disciplines, particularly meditation and achieving mental balance. I have requested that she attend regular therapy sessions, and she has agreed to brain scans. _

_The progression appears to be relatively slow. I suspect that at some point during her captivity she was exposed to the first components, but without a biopsy I cannot be certain. She has admitted to having undergone a previous brain scan at a major hospital, though will not divulge the details. Yet as far as I can tell, she is unaware of what was actually done to her brain._

* * *

_**Chapter Three: Sand**_

* * *

_Seventy-Two Days Ago_

Two sets of _intentions_ _**hovered**_ before her. _They twitched_, directing hands and feet, _determination _and _caution _tempering movements. Awareness and _respect_- all too rare when pitted toward her - _draped_ over them, warning them to not be hasty. One towered over her, nearly twice her mass. His name was Udar. The other was lighter, shorter, but still taller and theoretically stronger. Samuel.

Hands rose into guards. Different styles and preferences _described _positions of hands, arms, feet, bodyweight. They _wrote_ paths of attack, _interlocking, _familiar, each student _**knowing **_how the other would react. Experienced at fighting in tandem.

_memory _of _something similar, flickering through her, but cut off when they advance_

A smile. They halted.

River _**flowed**_.

They reacted with quick, sudden movements, moving away and around her, hunting for weaknesses. Rashid's style worked on observing, creating, and exploiting weaknesses, but it was not a single distinct martial art, like an **outfit**someone had to work to be able to fit into. It was less of a style and more of a mindset built around anticipating and exploiting vulnerabilities, and Rashid _worked like a tailor_, fitting his techniques to a person's strengths. The differences between the two students were manifest; Udar focused on swift, hard strikes coupled with grapples, while Samuel focused on grappling and force redirection.

This close, in the midst of clashing skin and muscle and bone, she felt clarity. More than anything else, this brought her back to the pits. This was what made her smile.

Her feet skipped her into range, and Udar reacted by stepping back and launching a couple of short jabs to keep her attention. He didn't commit to either of them; the last student who tried that had ended up eating sand within a second. Instead, his companion danced around at her back and closed in while she focused on the bigger man. River deflected both jabs, sending a measured counter that bounced off her forearm while shifting her weight to her left leg.

The moment Samuel entered striking range, she halted her attack. Bodyweight shifted to her left leg, and her entire body spun around the fulcrum of that limb, torso dipping forward, and right leg shooting up and back.

The _weapon _described the killing blow, giving her precise instructions on how to crush Samuel's windpipe or break his neck with her heel. The _urging _nearly killed her sparring partner, but she ignored it, aiming lower; the hammerblow hit Samuel in the chest and sent him toppling backward in surprise, wind blasted out of his lungs.

Udar stopped for a heartbeat, and River leapt inside his optimal striking range, arms cutting and jabbing. He scrambled to defend himself, hopping backward, off-balance. He deflected one, then two, then three strikes, and then she was beside him. One leg hooked behind his knee, and a twist sent him tumbling to the sand.

Cheers and applause sounded around her, and she flushed at the attention. Her sparring tended to draw _attention_, and not all of it happy. _**Discomfort **_wove around her, and she bent over, extending her hand to the student.

Udar glared up, and she didn't need to read his _pages_to see anger and resentment. A _flicker of coherence __**danced **_between them _- been training three years, beaten by a kid who just started _- before he reached up and took her hand. Grudging **acceptance **and a faint _echo_of _admiration _ran through his fingers as she lifted him to his feet.

River turned, hiding the wince and mix of emotions - shame _being most prevalent, for shaming him like that_ - and helped Samuel. There was only a _whisper_of resentment _**curling **_around him; the air was dominated more by _amazement, confusion, and a thread of attraction_ contributing to both of the previous.

River hoped that the sweat and heat hid the flush in her cheeks at that. A substantial percentage of the younger student populace displayed that reaction after bouts.

"An impressive show," Rashid said a few moments later as she toweled her face under the shade of one of the awnings around the training pits. She nodded, sipping ice-cold water from a bottle and wondering who _scaled Mount Olympus _to get something so wonderful.

"I feel negative," she murmured. "I embarrass them. Applications of force to quickly defeat them. Learning it too quickly. Some of them resent it. Envy, anger, mixed with sand."

"That is pride talking," Rashid said. "Pride is like air pressure. It keeps one aloft, but it needs to be pierced and vented often lest one rise too high."

River mumbled something she _didn't even __**understand**_under her breath. Hated metaphors. Her whole life was nothing but metaphors for the last few years, when her brain tried to process things it couldn't really understand. The clarity of the sparring was helping make things more sensible, at least.

"Though I am not surprised that they feel that way," he continued. "The techniques we teach to our students are not easy to grasp, even for a trained soldier. Mastering my style in two weeks is unheard of."

A frown cut over her face, and she covered it with another drink from the _**divine **_bottle of ice and wetness. The words spoken in that _cathedral voice _were _backed by many questions_, probing little needles of _**metal **_and _curiosity_. He knew some of her story, but not all.

Could he guess at her reader abilities? River had always learned fast and possessed startling intuition. Before the darkness and cold underground, she had believed it was just because she was intelligent, but reflection made her question that. Maybe it wasn't just capacity to study and analyze and collate and comprehend. Had she gained her powers from the Academy, or had they simply enhanced what was already there? Had she learned so quickly because instinct let her lift the knowledge from her teachers' minds?

She didn't say anything about it to Simon. But here, while Rashid and his instructors had been teaching her, the forms and techniques they had demonstrated sprang fully formed from their _mind-brain-books _and _**buried**_ under her skin, **attaching** to her muscles. And it wasn't the first time, either; reflection and memory showed that when she was piloting, she was moving in the exact same way Wash did, right down to flipping the activator switches in the exact same order.

That was both intriguing and worrying. It was bad enough when she pulled memories or raw data from a brain. But pulling muscle memory? Direct access of nervous systems, enabling her to move in the exact same way?

What about other aspects of a person? Mannerisms? Accents? _Flickers of Badger's voice and gestures, thrown in his face._

Thought processes? _I don't give half a hump if you're innocent or not._

Entire personalities?

If she could pull and integrate those aspects of someone else's neural structures, was it entirely possible that she could _become_ someone else?

"River?" Rashid called, his words yanking her by the neck back to reality.

She blinked. _**Ran a chronological check **_based on _heartbeat_ and _breathing_ patterns. She had been spacing out for five seconds, staring at the dirt.

"Sorry," she said. "Contemplating."

"Ah. Just don't do that in battle," he said. "Even a lout like Udar would manage to get in a decent hit if you lost yourself to deep thought while sparring."

She smiled and nodded, sipping her drink again, and Rashid stepped out into the sunlight, stretching.

"At this point, I wonder if anyone can match you in the ring," he mused, and a **question **perched on his shoulders, unspoken but ready. River blinked, and then realized the question's _texture_: a _challenge_.

She'd beaten almost all of the students, but had not fought any instructors or masters. Especially not _the_ master.

And she found herself smiling. Words, memories, and personal pride _gathered _in her stomach, and she stood as well.

"No power in the 'Verse can stop me," she found herself saying, and Rashid smiled.

"Pride, child," he said. He gestured to one of the pits, and then began removing his robe, revealing muscled flesh underneath. Old and gnarled, but still powerful, like artificially-aged century-oak. "Let me relieve you of some of it. You are swift, but you have much to learn."

River stepped out into the sun, nodding.

"I am not too proud to beat up an old man."

He threw his head back and laughed.

* * *

_Present_

"I'm amazed," Ornstintz said, steepling his fingers. The girl stared back at him with dark eyes, animal violence lurking in them. He didn't need to imagine what she would do to him if she got loose; he'd seen it firsthand when she'd driven a pen through a counselor's throat.

He ignored the blood still welling up from his nose. That was the price he paid for not respecting the killing machine bound to the chair across from him. What had he told Dupree? She could kill an army using just a teacup, and he'd gotten within biting range of her. Stupid of him.

"I'm amazed that you thought you could just walk in and kill me," he said, and then chuckled. "You couldn't even step on the street without being marked, and you thought _you_ could kill _me._"

She murmured something, and he raised an eyebrow.

"What?" he asked. Her eyes narrowed. "Repeat that. I didn't hear you."

Her lips pressed together, and he leaned forward.

"Mr. Coral, every time she refuses to answer a question, taze her."

The girl glanced up at the agent looming to the left side of the table, who drew a taser with a pistol grip from his coat. She glanced back and forth, a flicker of dread or fear in her eyes, and finally spoke up.

"Eighteen months," she said. "Entire Alliance. All the board's ships and all the board's men."

"You capture was inevitable," he retorted, brushing that off. It was an annoyance, really, that they hadn't gotten more than glimpses of her for eighteen months. Several close calls but no captures, until she'd practically come charging in at him. "You couldn't hide forever. This," he gestured at the room around them, "was always your fate. We own this entire system."

He grinned.

"It was only a matter of time before you were muzzled again."

She shrank back at that, looking down at the table, dark hair shielding her eyes, and he let himself relax a bit.

"Now, tell me about your treatments," he said. She glanced back up, a quizzical look on her face. "Yes, your treatments. What has your brother been giving you to combat your schizophrenia?"

"Nothing," she replied. Ornstintz frowned, then glanced to Mr. Coral. Without a word, the agent stepped toward the girl and stabbed the tazer into her shoulder. She leapt up, screaming, a faint sizzle of burnt flesh and ozone spreading as she thrashed in her chair for a moment, before her pulled the device away.

"_Jung chi duh go-se dway!"_ she spat.

"I can do this all day, One-Three-Seven," Ornstintz said with a shrug. "It's crude, but it worked for Pavlov."

"No drugs," she bit out. "I haven't been on drugs or treatments."

Ornstintz glanced again, and Coral raised the tazer.

"I'm not!" she gasped, shaking her head and pulling away, the second word disappearing into another scream as the tazer sizzled again.

"You can avoid this by just telling me what I want," Ornstintz said once her cries died down. The girl shook her head again, glaring at him. She muttered again, and he sat forward. "Repeat that."

"Keep it up," she hissed with a crooked grin. "Adelei Niska was a lot less gentle."

"I'm not here to torture you," Ornstintz said. "I just want to know what's happened to you since you were out of our care."

She shook her head, still glaring at him, and when Coral approached with the tazer once more, she only flinched a little bit away.

Ornstintz's nostrils flared with annoyance and anger at her obstinacy. He kept asking questions, and she kept refusing to answer them like a good little attack dog. She'd been a lot more compliant when she had been contained and controlled in the Academy. There were bouts of unpredictability, like the incident with the pen and the counselor, and the suicide attempt, but afterward she'd been compliant. Eighteen months of being outside of their care had done a lot of damage to the weapon, to the point that she thought she was a person again.

River Tam had died four years ago, she just hadn't realized it. They'd scooped out chunks of her brain and replaced them with their own architecture, and programmed in their own behavioral patterns. It was a necessary sacrifice to achieve what they needed. All that was left was the weapon system they had planted there - the ruthless, violent, programmed set of military wetware that controlled the body. The brain still had memories of what it was before they'd changed her, and the body tried to act like she was still a human being, but it was just an echo of a person long dead.

He shook his head. So few people were willing to accept that fact. The girl was now just a weapon. A rifle, a knife, or a tank didn't have dreams, or rights, or futures. The sooner she accepted that she wasn't a person anymore, the easier it would be.

She slumped in the chair, panting, and looked up. Their eyes met, and he knew, just from the rage and hate boiling there, that the part of her that clung to that lie had plucked exactly that line of thought from his mind.

"It's all true, you know," he said, leaning over the table. "You're ours, One-Three-Seven. So you should talk. You won't have any other choice. You never had any choice. Either tell me what I need to know, or the next prick will be sedatives from Dupree here, and I take you back to the Academy, and they decide whether or not you'll be another Merlin."

He shrugged.

"Because in the end, whatever you _were _before, you exist now to only follow orders."

She closed her eyes, exhaled, and then surprised him.

She nodded.

"I know," she whispered.

* * *

_Seventy-Two Days Ago_

Everything _flowed _together: movement, intention, probability. Physics dictated movement of energy. Biology dictated muscle positions and bone structure, defining range of movement. _Book-_**pages**_-__painting__-__**murals**__-neural-__**currents**_wrote out intended movements, reactions, reflexes, and tactical positioning. It was a **battle-sculpture**, telling River everything about her opponent in a blurring work of art. That **sculpture **spoke, and what it said was:

_Your face here_.

With a _blinky arrow _pointing at the sand as it rushed up and smacked her in the face.

Pain rolled along her body, and she decided to stay put for a few moments as she processed what the hell had just happened.

Because, as far as she could determine, an eighteen-year-old government trained assassin hardened by years of physical conditioning and backed by psychic powers and savant-level processing capacity just got her ass kicked by a sixty-seven-year-old man who had one third of his body weight taken up by beard.

Doctor Beard - no, no, Old Man Kickass because _what the hell was that he just did to her -_ bent down, offering her a hand.

She stayed facedown, hiding the _red _on her face, but _**embarrassment**_ danced over her back and sat down on her bony rump, _giggling the whole while._

His hand was **insistent**, and she made her peace with _**embarrassment**_, pushing up and accepting his hand.

"Ow," she muttered, clenching her other hand and shaking it. When he'd caught her wrist, she had thought she could slip free, right up until he'd taken that arm and used it as a lever to slam her into the ground. She replayed the fight in her head, running through the rapid exchange of strikes, her surprise at how quick the old doctor was, and the stinging in her fingers as he slapped aside her punches.

She'd moved in with a left jab, experimental, with the weapon describing a dozen possible followups depending on how he reacted. He caught her wrist, and five different grip-breaks had become apparent. She'd spun her arm, attempting to countergrab. He'd slid forward and sideways, his own arm moving with her spinning hand, and then both his were gripping her arm. Then face met sand met _ouchies _met _**embarrassment **_met the old man's hand lifting her to her feet.

"A good match," he said with a smile. Knowledge of just how significant that victory had been weaved among his beard. He'd just made her look like a rank amateur. Amazement and annoyance fought for control, before she realized she was feeling the exact same things that the other students had sweat and _spat _and _grumbled _while sparring with her.

She could see her own emotions reflected in him, but he maintained the smile, and gestured for them to step out of the fighting pit. They did so, weaving up toward the shaded rest areas, and when the sun stopped **beating **on them, Old Man Kickass spoke.

"How did I defeat you?" he asked, pickup a pitcher of tea and pouring it into a glass.

She sat, mind _clicking _and _whirring_. She stared at the sand, thought wiping away anger and annoyance and all the other childish emotions she still hadn't mastered. Supposition, fact, theory, and memory **wrote **and _scratched _and published a conclusion.

"You could read what I did before I even attacked," she said quietly. "You observed my fighting style and exploited weaknesses."

"Obviously," he said with a nod. Rashid took a slow sip of his tea. "Try harder."

A _scowl was born _on her face, but she looked away again. The annoyance rose up, a tiny _**phoenix **_of thought in her _**brain-pyre**_, but she used it. What did he mean? 'Try harder?' She reevaluated the situation, and asked herself a different question:

What were the weaknesses that he had exploited?

River sat up straight. She understood, and a moment later, she _comprehended_ as well.

"Automation," she said, and Rashid nodded.

It hadn't mattered who she had fought before. The techniques she used were swift, efficient, military martial arts combined with evasive movement and natural flexibility to escape grapples. Combined with her reader powers and mental processing capacity, she could easily defeat any opponent who wasn't wearing powered armor in close quarters. River had never really needed to think on what to do, because the enemy she fought were already beaten before they'd even taken the first swing.

"I'm automated," she continued. "The . . . the _weapon_, it . . . I can read what you're going to do-" She halted (nearly said it outright, bad!) and covered the stuttering moment with a swallow "-read your stance, your movements, and know what you're preparing to execute, and the _weapon_ handles how to attack."

"Even grasping my techniques just gave your . . . 'weapon' conditioning a new set of tools," Rashid said, setting down his tea and folding his hands. "The method of execution, as you put it, is still predictable. Still automatic. I studied how you fought other students, and understood how to counter."

The sand between her toes became intensely _interesting _as she though over that. Her eyes flicked up after many heartbeats.

"How do we defeat it?" she asked.

A smile, echoing ferocity and striated with determination.

"The way we defeat all obstacles, River," he said. "Discipline, focus, and determination."

She nodded.

"Show me."

* * *

_Present_

"How much do you remember?" he asked. He didn't need to elaborate; hell, he doubted he would need to even vocalize his questions.

She stared down at the table for several moments. Ornstintz was tempted to order another shock, but held back, letting her think. He understood that punishment was only warranted for refusal to cooperate.

"Enough," she said, her voice a quiet croak. "Too much."

"But enough to understand what we want from you," he said, and she closed her eyes. "Enough that you've come to understand what you are now."

"Understand," she grated, and looked back up at him. "Not comprehending."

"When you go back, we'll show you," Ornstintz said, and leaned a bit forward. "You think what you can do now is impressive? We can make you something much greater."

"No," River bit out, shaking her head. "Not one of those things. Not a Lancelot."

"No, not a Merlin," Ornstintz said, shaking his head. She didn't really have any idea, did she? Then again, most of the scientists involved in the project had not known the direction they were taking things. Ornstintz himself had only a vague idea. But he knew enough. "There's far more we can do with you than just make you a killer."

He leaned forward more, clenching his fists and voice turning hard. He imagined what would happen if she was uncooperative, and she jerked as if poked with a hot brand.

"But if need be, you're more useful as another assassin than as a brain-dead corpse."

She shivered, and he let the images from the conversion process dance around in his head for a while, particularly the organ extractions and neural remapping.

"But if you do cooperate," he said, changing tacks, "We can recall Garis. You can see him again."

She went stock still, and locked gazes with him. He thought he saw a flicker of hope in her eyes, followed a moment later by sharp anger. Her face locked up tightly, and she clenched her fists on the chair's armrests.

"Tell me about your brother's treatments," he said after a moment. "The more we know, the faster we can repair the damage. The faster we repair the damage, the more lucid you'll be. You may be a weapon, but that's no reason to keep you from having some semblance of yourself, is there?"

Silence. Ornstintz gestured, and she screamed a moment later. The ozone scent filled the room, and she gasped, cursing him between pants of agony.

"The treatments, One-Three-Seven," he demanded.

"Stick it in a reactor," she bit out, glaring at him.

The taser sizzled again, and she choked back her cry of pain, flinching only little. Once the shock was finished, her mouth widened in a rictus smile.

"You taught me to handle pain," she hissed. _"Bring it,_ you _pi gu_-_"_

Another gesture and another shock. Ornstintz tried to clamp down his mounting frustration as she resisted, but each subsequent shock had a less violent reaction. By the sixth in a matter of minutes, she was barely flinching, and came out of it laughing quietly at him.

"You can't hurt me," she bit out, and laughed again. "Not anymore. Not enough."

"Fine, then," he said, and rose, stepping around the table. River kept her gaze locked on his, and he could see, beyond the gleam, the damage deeply rooted in her. A wild, furious, insane hatred, buried behind the rictus smile as she defied him.

"Tell me about the treatments," he said, holding back his rage as he loomed over her. "The dosages. The chemical modifications. We know _what _your brother stole from Ariel, but we need exact dosages. What are they?"

He knew she wouldn't answer. He didn't want her to answer. He wanted her to stay silent, or do something better.

She did.

She laughed at him again, high-pitched.

"You'll have to try harder than shocks," she said through the laughter, and he knew he would. They'd used worse on her during her conditioning.

His fist slammed into her jaw, knocking her head back.

"You think you're in any position to laugh?" he shouted, and the anger boiled over. He yanked her hair and pulled her head back, and punched her again, this time in the stomach. "You think you have a _right_ to laugh at me?" He punched her twice more in the gut, and she gasped both times, grunting in pain. "You think a knife has a choice? You think a gun has any rights? You have _what we give you!"_

He punched her again in the jaw.

"Tell me what I want, or I break out the surgical tools," he snarled, and punched her across the face again, "And we find out the extent of your pain tolerance!"

"Sir," Dupree murmured, and he stopped as he raised his fist again. He stared down at the girl, through the red haze he hadn't realized was seeping into his vision. Blood dribbled down the girl's lips, but her eyes glared back at him as he held her head back by her hair. Defiance and anger and madness peered back at him through those brown eyes, but he saw no fear or intimidation.

He let go and stepped back. Ornstintz stopped to straighten his tie, and exhaled.

"Dupree," he said, bringing his breathing back under control, "Please examine the subject to ensure I did no long-term damage to her."

"Yes sir," the doctor replied with a nod. She stepped toward the girl, taking out a penlight. "You struck her in the stomach, should I . . . ?"

"Not now," Ornstintz said, shaking his head. "We'll check reproductive capability upon returning her," he said, and there was a worried flicker in the girl's eyes for the first time. He shrugged, trying to hide the smile of victory he felt at that reaction. "I do want to keep our options open."

He sat back down as Dupree checked the girl over.

"We'll have plenty of time back at the Academy to decide the best use for you, One-Three-Seven."

* * *

_Seventy Days Ago_

He twisted. Her leg brushed his stomach, a conservative kick to exploit his center of gravity.

His arms _**described **_her own error a heartbeat before they exploited it. She could see everything he was about to do, and the _weapon _hissed that none of that knowledge mattered because she couldn't exploit or escape it. Calloused, kickass old man hands locked her ankle.

Twist. Flip. And River _ate sand_.

She pushed herself up, coughing, and took his hand without looking.

"Getting better," Rashid mused. She sputtered out some sand in response. "Your control is better. Not perfect, but it's only been a few days."

Feet _settled_, and she shook her head. Sand fell from her hair.

"Show me more," she hissed. Determination and **hunger **leaked into her voice.

He nodded, and they resumed.

* * *

_Sixty-Seven Days Ago_

Armlock. Twist. Pain, _gasp_.

_**Knee **_to _sternum_. Throw.

She ate sand again.

"Good bout!" he panted, chuckling. She rolled over, glared at the sun, and let him pick her up again.

"We'll break that automation soon enough," he said, and she nodded. Teeth gritted, **painting **determination on her, and she took up a combat stance again.

"Again," she repeated, and he nodded.

* * *

_Sixty Days Ago_

It was raining today.

That meant she ate _mud _instead of sand.

_Frustration _spiked in her as she stood, wiping off the mud. He was breathing hard, water running down gnarled muscles. _**Concern **_drifted around his head.

She wiped her face. _Frustration _burned away any happiness she might have had at playing in the mud. Back muscles straightened, and she reacquired her center of gravity. _The weapon _muttered _quiet __**warnings **__and suggestions_, and she ignored them as best she could.

"You're just mocking me now, aren't you?" she asked, half smiling, and he chuckled, circling around her.

She watched him, carefully reading his stance, ignoring _the weapon's _ideas and trying to form her own.

Old Man Kickass advanced, darting across the pit. She moved to meet, and flesh and bone and **technique **clashed again. Arms locked. Hips twisted. Strength and agility clashed.

She _saw _what he planned, and the weapon told her how to react. Her muscles twitched.

She _saw _that he **saw **what she _saw _a moment before she saw the ground rising up yet again.

River let the rain splatter along her back for a minute or so afterward, and didn't push up out of the muck immediately.

"I'll tell the nurses to make sure you have a clean change of clothes," Rashid said, holding out a hand.

She took it, squeezing his fingers tight in annoyance, and wiped the mud away as best she could while he pulled her up.

"Strength," he said as she stood. "Plenty of it in you. You just have to claim it."

River nodded, water and mud dripping, and took her stance once more.

"Again," she whispered.

* * *

_Fifty-Three Days Ago_

Hands weaved, impacting and twisting. They crossed arms twice, trying to lock each other's limbs' down, and then disengaged.

Hundreds of eyes watched them. After all, it was the first day since they started sparring that River had yet to find herself facedown in Rashid's fighting pit. That alone was cause for interest.

Ten minutes of back and forth. Brief bursts of violence, punctuated by minutes of quiet stance or circling, evaluating one another. _The weapon _continued _**describing **_patterns and attacks and _maneuvers_, but she ignored them.

"You haven't used those techniques in several days," he whispered as they met again, locking arms and fighting for position.

He didn't need to say what "techniques" he meant.

"I don't need them," River muttered, and saw her own _frustration _echo from them.

"Another mistake," he whispered, and a diagram of _thoughtintentmovementattack_ flickered past her. She reacted, _the weapon _flashing an idea in a burst of _**electrical clarity**_, and she shifted her stance, twisting and releasing his arms. He broke away, nearly overbalancing as he tried to throw her, and shot back in toward her, seeking another grapple.

She stepped back, twisting and arms weaving, throwing back his own arms, and he brought himself up short.

Then Rashid smiled, white teeth parting the gray jungle of his beard.

"There," he said, and chuckled. He slid into his stance again, _satisfaction _and _pride __**gleaming **_from his stance.

She matched him, thinking furiously. He had been trying to break her from using _the weapon_, but _the weapon _had just saved her from another _meal of gritty sand _- and he was pleased.

They met again, an exchange of hard strikes, then she grabbed his arm, pinning it and trying to force him down. He reversed the grip with deft ease and began pushing her back.

"This 'weapon,'" he said, as they struggled. "It is a part of you. You cannot let it control you, but ignoring it is like ignoring an arm or a leg. It _is_ you."

He pivoted, preparing to throw her again, and she reacted by shifting her weight, digging in her heels. _The weapon _flickered through her arms, and she broke his grip again at its direction.

"_Use it_," he said with a nod, and they clashed again, a rapid flurry of arms and legs.

* * *

_Fifty-One Days Ago_

"You could have just explained it to me," she asked as they sat beneath the shade, watching the fighters practice.

He shook his head, brain-pages _flipping _slowly.

"No, I couldn't," he said with a shrug. "There is a difference between explaining and teaching. Understanding and comprehension. You had to learn it yourself."

A frown, _rebellious and unwanted_, claimed her face. Someone turning her words back on River was rare - especially when he had never heard those words before.

"That the training was pointless if I'm just going to use the programming anyway?" she asked, and he shook his head again.

"No," he said. "You had to learn to use it without letting it dominate you." He sipped his tea slowly, letting her mull that over. "The 'weapon' is a part of your mind. Instead of letting it control you, you had to learn to control it in turn. Your mind is yours, River. And what is the mind but chemicals and electrical impulses bound by practice and experience to a set pattern?"

He gestured to the fighting pit and the sparring patients and students.

"This, all of it, is just training the mind to allow the patient to control themselves. Confidence, strength, martial prowess, it is all a component of that. Self-control, which itself is just learning to dominate the chemical cocktail that is the human brain."

He sipped his tea once more.

"That is part of my style's basis: Discipline and awareness. Observing incoming data, understanding it, comprehending it, and exploiting it. In the end, all of it - the pain, the teachings, and even your 'weapon' - all of it is just _input_. Data, fed into the wetware and chemistry that is _your_ brain."

He looked back to her, meeting her eyes.

"It is a deceptively simple concept, isn't it? Take control of the input, and you shall become master of the output."

Silence reigned, and she turned that _thought-concept-idea-__**maybe quotation **_over in her head. He was right; she had used the _weapon_ to guide her, but had not relied on it to lead her. The distinction was subtle, but as she studied it in a _mental hall of mirrors_, peering at it from many directions, _**truth **_became evident. _Input versus output_. Control the former, control the latter.

Deceptively simple, in theory. But the constant clamor of _pain _and _**struggle **_in the courtyard proved that "simple" and "easy" were far from the same.

His _**attention **_jerked her own out of the musing, and she looked up. One of the instructors stood next to Rashid, speaking quietly with him. **Concern and ****concentration**wrapped around his shoulders, _claws _clinging tightly. **Flickers **of _worry _traced between Rashid and River. When they finished, a nod sent the instructor away, and he turned to River. His fingers snapped up his robe, and he put it on with no conscious effort.

"What's wrong?" she asked, standing. He paused, and calm forced its way onto him, _transparent _as the smile he offered her. When she didn't relax, it faded, and he nodded. Honest _concern _and **grim **certainty settled over him in a _**bloody, scaled mantle**_.

"Be wary," he said. "There is . . . a man here at the gates. He has asked for you, by name."

* * *

Rashid's office was a simple affair, with walls of the same simple stone and brick that the rest of the hospital featured. He had a wide desk of metal and plastic, a trio of computer monitors, a holographic projector, and two walls packed to the brim with books and folders of optical discs. A couple of simple metal chairs with thin padding and a large bay window overlooking the grounds and the plains beyond rounded out the room.

The office _smelled _of businesslike efficiency and studious attention, so much that it permeated every object in the room, not unlike the _**ugly pain **_on Reaver-attacked vessels, or the _comfortable closeness _of Serenity.

River tried to ignore the homesickness and melancholy that _wrapped _around her at that last thought.

Rashid sat behind his desk, and she wondered what he intended to do with the weaponry hidden behind it. She counted the **echoes **as he checked: two pistols, a shotgun, a pair of kives, a long blade - old and meticulously cared for, a heavy curving weapon that was a relic of Earth-That-Was - and two more blades hidden on his person. Those were just the weapons he checked; she suspected there were plenty more hidden on him.

River had no weapons beyond herself, which was enough. Laertes was hidden behind her chair, though with the sword locked it wouldn't be more than a particularly light club.

She sat, _anxiety __**curling **_around her, and waited.

"I am surprised someone came for you this suddenly," Rashid whispered, and she shook her head.

Postulate. _Evidence_. Conclusion.

"Tracked me," she said. "From the pirates who tried to kill me."

"You certainly did not keep a low profile, if the report from when you were rescued is to be believed," he mused, and she nodded again.

"I should leave," she whispered, and he looked up at her. "This can only cause trouble. I am problematic for you, and-"

"River," Rashid said, rock hard security rippling from his voice to her skin. "You are one of my patients."

He need say no more; a familiar **ring **of _strength came_ from his voice, one she hadn't heard often enough. It matched the same echo she heard in Mal's voice when he promised safety.

Rashid checked something on his monitor; she saw _afterimages _of the hospital's security officer in his _neural mirrors_. The instructors were not just instructors; some had armed themselves in equal parts firearms and watchfulness, but no alerts had gone out. Whoever had come for her, they had come alone, or had come very prepared.

River tried to relax, taking comfort in his certainty. If he would protect her, then she would do the same for him. If the stranger wanted to do them harm, she would educate him on the folly of his intent.

A _message flickered _on Rashid's monitor, and he nodded.

"They are escorting him through the halls now," he said.

She nodded, and closed her eyes. She poked her **awareness** out of the office and sent it questing through the corridors, _running _along stone walls and around electrical wiring and through vents, _splitting _and _hunting _and _**searching**_. She found _books _in her path, many _books_, their _pages _familiar from days of mapping due to _**Boredom**_. Here and there were people she was unfamiliar with: new patients, employees who had been too far away in the building to map.

And then, across the building, flanked by two of the combat instructors was

_Empty_

River opened her eyes, heartbeat increasing incrementally, and was surprised at the lack of terror. Concern and worry, definitely, and _the weapon _was hissing _ten thousand approaches _and **maneuvers **and _**escape routes **_all at once, but not stark terror.

She'd killed one Hand already, after all, and she knew she could kill them again if needed. But why wasn't she more worried than she should have been?

The two men escorting the _empty _were not concerned. In fact, they seemed at ease. Wary, but not frightened like anyone else in the presence of the Hands. And despite the fact that he was _empty_, there was something familiar about the _hole _in awareness that surrounded him.

She frowned, puzzling through it, while plotting escape routes and attack plans as they approached. She had three hundred and fourteen options ready by the time the _empty _paused outside the door, and a polite knock sounded.

"May I enter?"

Every one of those plans came to a dead halt. She knew that voice.

"Yes, please, come in," Rashid said, tensing up. He glanced to River, and she nodded.

The door opened, and a dark-skinned man in a faded blue suit stepped in. Black hair grew close around his head, shaved back to a neat fuzz. Dark eyes, calm and evaluating, flicked around the room, like autosensors seeking targets. They settled on her, and he slid to a halt.

He turned and politely closed the door behind him, then turned back to the pair.

"I apologize for not announcing my arrival sooner," he said, his words clipped and cultured with a vague Londinium accent, and utterly lacking in any of the _colors _or _**ripples **_or _echoes _of normal people's voices. "You understand my need for secrecy, I assume, Doctor Rashid?"

River stayed still in her chair. If she moved, she might not stop herself from trying to kill this man, simply because of the _memories_. She had a hard time forgiving anyone who Mal sometimes remembered impaling him on a sword.

"I believe introductions are in order?" Rashid asked. "You have the advantage on us."

"I do not presume I have any advantage," the _empty _man replied, bowing slightly. "Not in this room, within arm's reach of the two of you. But I digress. I go by the name of Nemo now."

"It's okay," River found herself saying. Both men looked to her, and she exhaled. "It's okay. If he wanted to cause trouble for us, he would have done far worse than walk in by himself. He would have brought company."

"Indeed, I would have," Nemo said, and gestured to the free chair. "May I?"

"You may," Rashid replied, and Nemo walked to the chair and settled down slowly and smoothly. The same way one would move in the presence of a wolf or tiger. River wondered if he was nervous or just cautious.

"What do you want with me?" River asked, feeling a _**heat **_building up in her. Anger was a rare emotion, but **memories** of what this man had done to her family, directly and indirectly, were stoking the _**fire **_within.

"Your help," Nemo said. "I will be straightforward and blunt. I know that the good doctor has no love for the Alliance either. I am here to ask for your assistance in fighting them."

"Obrin also wanted me to help fight them," she replied, and he nodded. His face turned pensive. What was he thinking? Not being able to see his _pages _was frustrating.

"And I apologize for his indiscretions, River," he said. "Not all aspects of my organization are of one mind as to the route we take to our goal. But most of us agree that we need whatever advantage we can acquire, and-"

"I am not a weapon," she cut him off, and he nodded again.

"I agree-" he stared.

"I am not a weapon," River repeated, leaning forward. "I will not be used. Not by _anyone."_

"And I respect that fact, River," Nemo replied. "I merely-"

"Leave."

He stopped, sitting back in his chair, and she could see the honest surprise on his features.

"You are certain you will not-"

"'Leave' is a monosyllabic word with a distinct and unmistakable definition in this context," she said, the _heat _in her eyes and chest intensifying. "I can provide ample brain trauma to give you reason to not understand that word if you do not already."

He stared at her for a moment, and a slight smile quirked his mouth.

"Malcolm has certainly rubbed off on you," he said, slowly and carefully rising to his feet. "But I will depart, as you wish."

He reached up to his chest with exaggerated slowness and opened a hidden pocket in his suit's breast. River and Rashid both tensed, but he only produced a small slip of paper and set it on Rashid's desk.

"If you change your mind, River," he said, and then bowed politely again. "Good day."

She waited until she was sure he was gone. The _hole _that marked him was flanked by the _books _of the escorts, and they traced a path back to the entrance to the hospital.

_**Relaxation **_permeated her, friendly and warm, and she settled back into her chair.

"It is one thing to be told that your patient is wanted," Rashid said quietly, a smile in his voice. "It is another to have a man like that walk in and speak of open rebellion so casually to said patient."

She nodded, running his words over in her head. _Empty _words, with no aroma or taste to them.

"You know what that man is?" she asked, mostly to fill the silence as she processed what had happened.

"Government agents always reek," Rashid replied with a shrug. "Especially cold men like that. Empty men."

She glanced back at Rashid, and the troubled expression he bore matched the _**stormclouds **_around his head. He met her eyes and she thought she saw a faint shiver. An _ugly echo sounded __**faintly**_, of blood and pain and death, but vanished a heartbeat later.

Old men and dark pasts were synonymous these days.

"I need to leave," she said once again, and picked up Laertes. Rashid nodded, _weariness _threading his veins.

"Your therapy is not finished," he said. It was a protest, but not intense. Just facts. He knew she responded better to that than emotional appeals.

"If he found me, so can others," River replied.

"If others come, they will need a cruiser in orbit to breach these walls," he said, and the **certainty**in his voice stopped her in her tracks. She looked back up at him, and saw a resolve made of _solar armor plating _and backed by a **honeycomb** of **carbon nanotube honesty.** That was no boast.

She stared at Rashid for several seconds, _heavy _with uncertainty, and an intense urge arose to _look_, like she had done to the **ugly, old men **_covered in blood _who she had been paraded before. She had pulled Miranda from those men, Miranda and **darker, formless **_**things**_. She could pull the same deep secrets from Rashid, if she tried.

River turned her gaze.

No. His were _his_. Whatever made him so hardened - whatever made him stand against the Alliance with such certainty - was not for another. If he did not show it, she would not hunt it.

"If you believe that," she said, and rose. "I need to rest. To contemplate."

To consider how soon she would move on. Rashid's hospital was safe, but not for her, and not so long as she was here. The Alliance would send more than a cruiser after her, if they found her.

She left quickly, Laertes tucked under her arm, and he said nothing. He didn't need to.

* * *

_Forty-Four Days Ago_

River sat in her room, the sheath holding Laertes lying on a white cloth in front of her. The electrosword lay beside her, naked blade gleaming after a fresh round of polishing and careful whetting. The coils running through the blade were functioning perfectly fine; whoever had designed it had over-engineered the sword to last an age, it would seem.

_Relief _danced around her hair as she leaned over the sheath. It was good that the sword needed so little maintenance, as she had not drawn the weapon in months. The clasp for the sword's scabbard lay before her, spread out in many pieces on the cloth. It had to be disassembled without someone who knew a code word.

Schematics **hovered **before her, twisting and spinning. River could see circuitry and gears and wires and wheels, and plot out the whole _purpose _of the device without needing to read a manual. She didn't comprehend them, not like Kaylee. Kaylee just _looked_ at a machine and could _speak_ to it, and when she worked it answered her. River didn't know if Kaylee had powers akin to her own, or if she was just that talented, but she wished she had the mechanic's gift.

Instead, she puzzled through the device, disassembling it in her head and cataloguing each part, figuring out how it operated through careful analysis. Kaylee could have torn the thing apart and rebuilt it in minutes even if it was alien to her.

She carefully put the device back together, and held up a small data chip. The speck of data crystal **echoed **with eight voices and strings of syllables, all of which could unlock the blade.

A _question? __**curled**_ around her wrist, poking at the chip, and she closed her eyes. The datapad beside her held a ninth voice. She could upload it, and when the sheath was reassembled, she could draw the blade herself.

Rashid had taught her strength. But she didn't know if she was strong enough yet. Not enough to trust herself.

She set the chip aside, and sheathed Laertes. She could at least draw it if needed while in the hospital.

There was a knock on her door, and River sat up. The weapon and its components were set aside, and she padded across the room. The _pages _of the mind outside rustled quietly, the _**text familiar **_to her. One of the nurses, and River knew why she was there before she spoke through the door.

"River, the doctor has sent for you. He wishes to speak with you in his office again."

"_Xie-xie," _she called in response.

Minutes passed, _wings _and _feathers _whispering past her as River made sure she was properly dressed. She left Laertes where it lay; there was no **worry** or _**threat **_in the air around the hospital, nor any empty, so no need for the weapon.

The halls were quiet. It was late at night, and most of the staff and patients were asleep or in their rooms. She weaved through the corridors quickly, _with curious feet_, and found Rashid's office.

The door was closed but his light was on, and when she knocked, she _smelled _something that went past her.

Emotions, _stark and heavy_, hung in the room. Anticipation. Worry.

_Knowledge_.

She never thought that particular _font _would fill her with dread.

She opened the door. Rashid sat behind his desk, staring at the flatscreen display on his computer, _contemplation __tracing_ _a mish-mash of __**concepts **__around his head_. They ran _together_, _combining _and **weaving **and colliding _**too quickly to make out anything **_specific. They _**stilled **_and _vanished _as she entered.

"River," he said, smiling. Most of it was genuine. Most. "Please, come in. can you close the door?"

She did so, _foreboding __**rising in dust **_as she closed it, and she sat down across from Rashid. He looked back to his screen, and _comprehension _**hardened **around him.

His _mental mirror _showed her a three-dimensional diagram of a human brain. Text scrolled past it, identifying the patient's name.

A chill ran down her spine, and she knew what he was going to say before he cleared his throat.

"Tell me, River," he whispered, "Have you noticed that your powers have been growing stronger?"

* * *

...

* * *

_**Author's** **Notes:**_****This chapter took me a while to produce, mostly because I kept scrapping segments and rewriting them due to not liking how they were turning, especially River's sparring with Rashid. I eventually hit on the idea to use a classical training montage. Plus, River getting her ass kicked over and over was funny**_._**

The good news is, this chapter is the halfway point of this episode, and we're all downhill from here. And going downhill is always fun.

Until next chapter . . . .


	78. Chapter Four: Breakdown

_**Chapter Four: Breakdown**_

* * *

_She did not take the reality of what was done to her brain well. What they left inside of her has made her question herself. She hates it; that much I can see in her whenever we talk about it._

_I see now that telling her may have been a mistake. She is intelligent, capable, and independently-willed, but she has not escaped that place. I can see that much in how she talks about it. Though she is no longer afraid of it, she still feels the pain, and I suspect something worse than fear has taken root in her._

* * *

_Forty-Four Days Ago_

River sat,_ stillness_ in her muscles and _shock_ _pulsing _through her arteries. Long moments passed, and Rashid looked up. Guilt _curled _around his shoulders, accompanied by concern and weariness.

He knew. He'd known, for the entire time she had been his patient. He'd kept it hidden, somehow; a secret he had buried _with his others_.

He understood _what _she was. The powers. The nightmares. The_ curse__**blessing**_**power**weakness of her mind.

And River understood that it changed nothing.

Maybe some of the _colors _and the _**echoes **_of his words in the past were different in retrospect. But that was all that those words changed. She could still see _him_, see the emotions _dancing _about him, his thoughts and character and the fiber of **iron-hard honesty** and **devotion** that _pulsed _in his skin alongside red blood cells.

Were she a normal person, this revelation would cast doubt and suspicion, but she wasn't normal. The truth of a person could not truly be hidden from her, whether terrible nor noble. In the wake of shock at his admission, River found no _**burning heat**_ or _sharp hostility_, just . . . understanding. Understanding, and a _creeping breeze _of exhaustion.

"I am sorry I revealed this without warning," he said, clasping his fingers. Honesty and worry _slid _around his shoulders, and River nodded quickly.

"It is . . . abrupt," she admitted. She shook her head. "But . . . not alarming. I am just. Abrupt. Um. Well, surprised that . . . ." She was fumbling over her words. Someone who knew what she could do but wasn't family nor the enemy was disconcerting. The last man who had been neither was Colonel Dannet. Finally, she managed a word that encompassed her emotions at this unexpected _kick in the ribs_.

"How?"

"This so-called 'Academy' that you survived," Rashid said, closing his eyes. _Old, scarred pain __**cut**_across him._ Pain _and _regret_. "It was not the first incarnation of such a project. I know little of the current operation, beyond the ugly secrets you have told me. I certainly did not know that they had reached a point where they were manufacturing assassins. But prior to this 'Academy,' there were other projects researching the viability of 'telesthetics' and their military applications. Not all were Alliance-funded."

"Independents," River said, and Rashid nodded.

"I was part of such a team," he said. "We were not directly involved with human experimentation. We were . . . I would say reverse-engineering what the Alliance discovered. Or attempting. We never progressed past a realization of what they were up to. Certainly we never reached the point where we would have been experimenting on humans - though I question whether or not we wouldn't have. The Independents were desperate toward the end."

He shook his head, refocusing his attention.

"My group was small. We did not have the funding for more than a small naval taskforce, a few hundred soldiers, a small bioengineering team. We spent years raiding Alliance research, piecing together their data. Project Chimera. Project Origin. Project Scaleless. And rescuing those that we could. Too few."

River could see flickers and glimpses. _Pain _and **regret**, while staring at her own blood-soaked hands. Disgust and pity _mixing _as she looked upon a man with a hundred wires running from an open braincase, _**screaming and thrashing**_. A line of scientists, hooded, bound, _trembling_, up until a shout and a hail of gunfire cut them down, **recoil**_running up her arms _as she fired the weapon.

She jerked, gasping, and he closed his eyes and sighed.

"I did not intend for you to see that," he murmured. River's fingers swiped over her eyes and came away _wet_. She shivered, and the images _pulled away_ as he tried shutting them out. A** trail of blood** _**ran **_around his face, though, _splashing _on his skin.

_old men covered in blood, it doesn't touch them but they're drowning in it_

"The war was a source of shame for many," he whispered. "And it is a terrible regret on my part that the very horrors I fought against haven't ended."

"Not yet," River whispered, clenching her fists. _Certainty _echoed in her words. Certainty tinged with **blood**. and those words became a promise. "Not _yet_."

Silence, for several long moments, and as the _**ugly pain**_ faded, she remembered why he had called her to this office. She unclenched her fingers, relaxing as best as the _tightening horror _of his memory would allow her, and spoke.

"Yes," she said. "To your question. My abilities have grown stronger."

"As I suspected," Rashid said, _relief _rolling off of him as their focus changed. "I need to show you why."

* * *

_Present_

"This has not been a fruitful interview," Ornstintz said, steepling his fingers and peering at the crazy, obstinate girl. He kept a thin smile on his face, and remained confident. He wasn't entirely sure if she could tell that he was having to work just a little to keep it up, but the memory of what happened during another interview with this same girl was hard to shake.

"You're not writing anything," she murmured, and he nodded.

"I'm not that stupid."

"You brought armed guards," she replied, and her smile grew a bit. It was a bloody grin, but that just made it a bit more disturbing. He could imagine the programming inside of her brain was lashing out like a savage animal.

"I'm confident that they can shoot you before you get out of those restraints," he replied. "Not even you are that fast."

"Assumptions," One-Three-Seven muttered, shaking her head. "Safe behind a wall of paper and glass. I can see the foundations of your confidence. Quicksand and uncertainty."

"Yes, assumptions," he replied, leaning forward in interest. Lucidity was all well and good, but only when the subject was cooperating. It was the sing-song loony babble that revealed the most interesting things about the subject; when the host for the weapon programming became stressed, the host's reaction to that stress could be illuminating.

"Like you assumed you could kill me," he continued. "Like you assumed you were the most dangerous thing in the galaxy."

"Lots more dangerous," she replied. "Dresden Zero-One-Eight. Ahmad Nine-One. Ahmad Nine-Three-Beta. Toreno-Zero-Six-Six."

He blinked at that list of names. They sounded like . . . Asteroids?

"Asteroids on an unstable orbit with Persephone," Dupree offered from her spot between them, near the door. "Scheduled for routine orbit correction or demolition."

"Thank you, Dupree," Ornstintz said, frowning.

"If I wanted you dead," One-Three-Seven said with a sudden giggle. "Bit of course correction. Complex math, but not that complex. Rocks fall, everyone dies."

A chill slashed through him at those words and the implication. She'd been considering dropping an asteroid on the planet to kill him?

"Just an option," she said, and the chill reached his stomach. "Just a possibility. I wanted to do it face to face. Personal. Knife, electricity. But hidden."

She stopped suddenly, shaking her head, and her eyes widened a bit in surprise. Onstintz sensed confusion and vulnerability as her mind caught up with itself and realized what she was saying. He moved quickly to exploit the instability.

"Personal?" he asked. "You know what's personal? Eight criminals on a dilapidated Firefly-class cruiser spending the rest of their lives in prison awaiting a death sentence."

That got her attention, and the confusion was replaced by horror. He leaned forward, projecting every bit of confidence he had into his next words while she was off-balance.

"You think they can hide from us? Two-thirds of the Alliance Navy are patrolling the Border and Rim, putting out those brushfires started by your transmission eight months ago. You think that they can hide from that many ships? You think an unarmed pile of rusty _go se_ can do anything against Alliance battlegroups hunting insurgents?"

He slammed a hand on the table, and she flinched. He saw tears start forming in her eyes.

"The only hope that they have is if we don't care about them anymore," he snarled. "And you can help make sure we don't."

He stood, leaning over the girl, who was trembling at the force of his voice and from her own violent mood-swings.

"Tell me. About. The fucking. Treatments."

* * *

_Forty-Four Days Ago_

"When I analyzed your brain, I confirmed my suspicions about what you are," Rashid said.

"They call people like me 'empaths," River mumbled. "Passive and active detection of emotional states, physical states, mechanical and electrical states. High value due to long-range sensory capability, estimate maximum range one hundred and-"

She shut her mouth, shaking her head. Uncontrolled rambling; _never a good sign._

"Indeed," Rashid said with a nod. The _oscillation _of his colors said that he wasn't put off by her babbling. "I determined as much when I studied your brain's scarring. It resembled the earlier work from Project Chimera, though far more sophisticated. But there was more than just neurosurgical scarring. This is what we found."

Rashid gestured to the display, turning it with _flicks of_ _intent _and fingertips. The layers of her brain shifted and faded bit by bit, revealing a fine outline of her brain's shape. Tiny gossamer threads formed an intricate tracing of her neural tissue, nearly as solid as the brain she had just been observing. Small needlehead-sized nodes were scattered along the interior of the shimmering brain-outline.

River leaned closer to the display. _Chills crawled down her spine_, _spiders_ of _ice _prick-prick-prickling along her vertebrae. Her eyes flicked to Rashid, and a clear** thought-drawing** hovered around him, lending _context _and _knowledge _to the thing she was staring at.

"That is a atom-thin lace of superconducting wire," he said. "Grafted to your brain cells in a pattern matching your own brain's structure, with nodes intersecting in the sections of your brain that were most severely scarred."

She stared at the display, and found herself shivering.

"That wasn't there before," she whispered, and Rashid nodded.

"You said that your brother had conducted brain scans with a neuro-imager on Ariel. I do not doubt his findings. This must have manifested during your freedom."

"How?" River asked, but the answer _formed _and supplied itself before Rashid even spoke. "It was built. That would require . . ." She calculated, **hypothesized**, and _concluded _with swift certainty. "It would require sophisticated nanotech injected into my brain during my captivity. Nothing else could have constructed this while I was free."

"Likely shortly before your brother rescued you," he said with a nod. "The neural stripping you suffered removed sections of your brain to allow this . . ." He spat invisible poison. "_Construct_ to form."

"Function?" her mouth asked, while the rest of her twisted in a _swirl _of disgust, horror, and curiosity.

"Obviously, it enhances your mental acuity," he said, his voice troubled. "The design is patterned after smaller-scale neural implants. It assists in mental processing capability, reactions, planning, problem solving, and so on. And the device almost certainly enhances your extrasensory capabilities. The 'telesthetic' component."

"Thus, your fist-in-brain-words," River muttered. He raised an eyebrow, _confusion__ echoing _from the sound of her nonstandard words. River shook her head. "Your question regarding my powers. My senses. Precognition, empathic detection and analysis, extreme reaction speed and perception."

"Yes," he said with a nod. "This thing growing in your brain is responsible for it, I am almost certain."

She stared at the ghostly gossamer outline of her brain, and the millions hair-thin wires threading among the neural bundles that _defined _her. A shiver _slid_ along her vertebrae, and among the _chills_, she felt something else beating deep within her, pulsing in time with her blood as she stared at _their mark on her_.

**Heat**.

**Anger**.

"How do we kill it?"

Rashid nodded. He knew what she was going to ask before she said it.

"This device is . . . Impressive, in its complexity," he whispered. "I have seen neural laces before, including cybernetic interfaces to allow remote mechanical control or grafts to repair neural damage, but this is far beyond what I have ever seen. Nothing like it was present at any of the Alliance projects we destroyed. Until I scanned your brain, I didn't think something this complex was possible with our current technology."

River listened to his words and heard the meaning underneath them. The **heat-**_**anger**_ flared a bit higher.

"Metal parasite," she muttered, the **rage **_clawing _and _biting_. "How do we kill it?"

"I do not know if I can," he admitted, shaking his head, and her body sank into her chair. "I brought you here to warn you of this, but I also wanted to ask you for permission to-"

"I don't care what you do," River said, and _heard _the _**burning furnace**_ inside belching _**heat **_into her words. "I want it dead. _I want it out_!"

Rashid sat back, _concern _coiling around him, and River realized she was standing. Her fingers cut into her palms, eight tiny blades biting her skin. Her jaw ached, teeth clenching and grinding. And within her, the **furnace **burned and thrashed, a _**serpent of rage**_ demanding release.

She uncoiled her fingers and relaxed her muscles with careful deliberation. The **furnace **_**raged bright and hard**_, demanding _violence_, and she squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself to sit down. She could not reign it in, but she could control her physical response to the fury, though it took long, unsteady minutes for the **furnace **to burn down and allow her some measure of rational thought again.

"I wish to take a biopsy, if you will consent to it," Rashid eventually said, once she had calmed. "I want to acquire a sample of the nanomachines in your brain."

"Fractal programming projection," River said as the part of her not boiling with _**heat-hate**_ processed his words.

"If I can study the machines' programming and the patterns of what they are assembling," Rashid said, "I can begin determining what they are building, as well as how to remove this thing from you without damaging your brain in the process."

Silence, eventually ended by a slow nod.

"Do it," she whispered.

* * *

_Present_

Ornstintz set the recording datapad down, arms crossed. She spoke haltingly, in a low, quiet voice, interspersed with sniffs as she sobbed. Pain had not worked, but love and family were an easy avenue for the weapon that believed she was still a person and clung to the trappings of humanity.

"One dose per day," she murmured. "Current regimen demands once per twenty-five hours at rate of current tolerance and metabolization, down from two times per day six months ago."

Tears streamed down from River's cheeks as the girl spoke, detailing the treatments her brother gave her to maintain her lucidity. Ornstintz recorded them carefully, a smile of triumph accompanying the monologue. Dupree watched the girl's slow confession with an air of unease marring her brow.

"Was that so hard?" he asked as she finished, and the girl sniffled quietly. He scowled at the crying weapon-host, and shook his head.

"This is what we've spent over a year trying to recover?" he asked, glancing at Dupree. "A girl who can barely stand a few harsh questions before breaking down into a sobbing wreck?"

"That sobbing wreck wiped out forty-seven Reavers in close combat by herself," Dupree replied. "When motivated, she is dangerous."

"I don't see dangerous," Ornstintz grunted. "I see pathetic. I see something that needs to become another Merlin to be viable for our purposes. Or at least can be part of the gestation experiments."

Dupree opened her mouth to speak, but a buzzing from her coat pocket caught her attention. She took the phone out and glanced at the wafer-thin communicator, before looking up.

"Priority, sir," she said. She gave a significant glance to River. "I should step outside for a moment."

"Not like it will matter," Ornstintz said. "One-Three-Seven can just pluck it out of your brain. And besides, she won't see the outside of a prison cell or operating theater for the foreseeable future."

"Still, sir, I don't think we should make a-"

"Fine," Ornstintz said with an irritated wave of his hand. Dupree nodded and stepped toward the door. One of the armored guards outside checked her and let her outside, and she started talking urgently into the phone.

The door sealed closed and locked again, leaving Ornstintz alone in the room with the girl, the two guards, and the pair looming, blue-suited agents.

"I think the only person slightly sympathetic to you is gone now," Ornstintz said. "So, let's continue. Don't think the sobbing fit you just went through will save you from-"

She looked up suddenly, her eyes and face red, and her eyes fixed him. Anger, sudden and hot, shone through the tears on her face.

"I know what you put in my skull," she snarled. "The thing growing there. The metal cancer. The nanotech neural lace wrapping itself around my brain."

Ornstintz blinked in surprise. How the hell had she learned of that? She would need access to a high-end neural imager to detect that, and someone with the knowledge of advanced medical nanotech to understand what it was they were looking at. Not even her brother had that kind of specialized knowledge. Interesting.

Then, a slow smile cut across his features.

"Then you know that we own you," he said, and girl's the anger grew even more intense. He nodded, a realization making her recent actions all the more clear. "That's why you went on this suicide run, isn't it? That's why docile little River Tam became this rampaging assassin. All or nothing, right?"

He saw frustrated rage mixed with mounting despair in her eyes, and started laughing again.

"And look where your wrath got you, kid."

* * *

_Thirty-Five Days Ago_

The days between revelation and results were long and anxious. The biopsy had been swift; she'd gone under for a few minutes - long enough for nanoprobes to be extracted - and then spent half a day in recovery battling _Boredom_. The reality of what had happened, of the mark _branded _into her brain, left the new_** heat seething**_ within her. She wanted to **burn **through it on the training grounds, but once released from recovery she forced herself to hold back for everyone's safety. The last thing she wanted was to lose the control - now so tenuous - that she had _forged _with _discipline _and _reconciliation _with _the weapon_. She trained by herself, but even then the _**furnace **_surged bright and violent; three training weapons broke as she beat practice dummies.

That terrified her more than anything else.

When a nurse called her to Rashid's office one night, River walked with equal steps of _trepidation _and _**excitement**_. Rashid was a genius, far more so than her. He had to know how to remove this _**evil metal brand**_ buried within her mind.

River paused outside his door, emotions _jumbling _together, and knocked.

"Please, come in, River," he called, and his voice echoed with weariness. Heart pounding, River opened the door.

He sat behind his desk, looking older than she remembered. Or that was what the _colors _and _threads _and _**inks **_of his pages made him look. She entered cautiously, feet _tracing_ as though landmines and vipers covered the floor, and closed the door behind her.

"Unfortunate news," she said. It wasn't a question, and the pulse of **anger **and _weariness _from him confirmed the statement better than any words. She sat down, breathing slowly, worry and anxiety _clawing_over her chest and dimming the _**heat **_from the **furnace **within. He touched his keyboard as she settled in, and the room dimmed. The hologram showing her brain appeared again, with the gossamer brand of superconducting wire burned into it highlighted.

"I have finished extrapolating the fractal programming in the nanomachines," he said after a few moments. He met her eyes, and exhaled. "I did not expect what I found."

The _fear _spiked and danced again.

"Can you kill it?" she asked.

"Possibly," he replied. "I know that we certainly _can _destroy this construct, but I do not know if I can do so without killing you, or at least making the neural scarring even worse. The device is not simply inhabiting parts of your mind. It is actively replacing damaged sections of your brain, and taking over some of your cognitive functions. Tell me, River, you have been growing less unstable over the last year, have you not?"

River closed her eyes, the _fear_ replaced by a horrible realization.

She had believed that her lucidity had been a result of mental and physical recovery. The warm walls of _Serenity_, the stalwart love of her family, her strengthening certainty of her place in the world and how she could protect them. She thought she was healing. She assumed that she was healing.

And as she understood, the _**furnace **__burned bright_, flaring up and _**snarling**_.

"I thought that I was," she whispered. "Hypothesis was that I was recovering from mental trauma, but-"

"You were," he said, gentle honesty in his words. "Recovery from the mental trauma and your strength and self-confidence were indeed much of what made-"

"Don't patronize," she hissed, and shook her head. "I know."

"I am not," he replied, still gentle. "But not all of your strength came from this device. It could only strengthen what was already-"

"Stop," she snapped, and then closed her eyes. _Shame _and _contrition _sparked across her, and she held up a hand. "I apologize. I-"

"I understand," he said, and went silent for a while, letting her sort herself out as best she could. It took long moments for the _**anger **_and renewed burst of _self-loathing_ to simmer away. The anger was newer and more intense than ever, but the self-loathing was familiar. It was the same sort that burst forth whenever she thought of where Simon would have been - _should have been_ - if it weren't for her.

She started to open her eyes, but _wetness _covered her cheeks. She wiped the tears, and with a shuddering sigh, she nodded.

"Continue," she murmured.

"This construct is very intricate and has integrated itself thoroughly into your brain," he said, his words slow and steady, like all bad news. "If I remove it now, then it would at worst kill you or render you braindead. At best, it would render your back to the state you were in when you were released from that place."

Memories of jumbled sensations. _Chaos and __thoughts_, not sure if they _were hers or another's_. **Names**, _**uncertainty**_, **cold steel of guns and knives**. _**Pain **_and _screaming_, laughter and **compassion**. **Metal skin** holding _warmth _in the void. The first weeks had been horrible, as she couldn't figure out what was happening around her among the voices and violence and happiness.

She didn't want to return to that.

"I want it _gone_," she muttered, and he nodded.

"I shall see what we can do. But there is a second issue you should know of."

She nodded, but the _swirl _of color around him made her even more worried and anxious. He had not spoken of the worst news?

"I now know what these nodes are for," he said. "And they are part of the reason why the nanoweave lace is so tightly integrated with your brain. They are receivers."

**Liquid nitrogen** chilled her spine.

"Specifically," he continued, "they are small Cortex receivers. The kind that would be used to receive data from any interstellar router. There are also indications of the microprocessors needed to decode information received. And judging by the patterns of construction, the lace appears to be capable of directly feeding electrical impulses to your brain's cognitive and motor functions."

River stared, _**shivering horror**_ accompanying the comprehension of those words, and the dark implications. It took her a moment to fully appreciate what it all meant.

Remote cognitive and motor control anywhere within range of wireless Cortex.

"How long?" River asked, **frigid claws** wrapped around her heart.

"I estimate that the neural lace will reach the point where it can receive commands and override your own faculties within eight months," Rashid said, weary resignation _resting _on his shoulders. "After that, a single transmission will be all they need to kill or recapture you, and there is no way to stop it."

* * *

_Present _

"-seven minutes, once he gives the order," Caroline Dupree said as she paced in the antiseptic hallway. She was about fifteen meters down from the makeshift interrogation room, and could see the dozen security troops standing in the hallway around the door, just in case River tried something.

She paused, listening to the reply on her phone, but only paid half a mind to it, for the white tiles and lights of the hallway became a sudden contrast to the black-and-gray tones of the thing that stepped around the corner of an intersection not five meters away.

"Yes," she said quietly. "Everything's ready. I need to go now."

She quickly closed the phone and collapsed it as the blank visage of the Merlin turned, peering up and down the hallway. The black and gray of the thing's armor and clothing underneath clashed violently with the white and silver of the hospital, but even more disconcerting was the steady smoothness of its movements: liquid but slow, like flowing molasses.

"Lancelot," she said as its blank face settled on her. The Merlin turned its whole body in a single steady, smooth twist to face Dupree, and she fought down the urge to just spin around and bolt. She knew how predators reacted to that, and the fact that this predator was on a leash of cybernetic implants and hardwired radio controls did nothing to soothe her.

"Why are you here?" she asked. It stared at her for a moment. She suspected it was thinking, but _thought _on its part would demand resisting against the very limitations that had been forced on the lunatic mind within that helmet. "You were ordered to patrol."

"_This. _Patrol." The grating voice chilled her, and she saw one arm point down, a finger extending.

"You are supposed to patrol the _rooftop_," she said, and the head cocked slightly, blank visage boring into her where she stood. Dupree kept the trembling at that gaze under control. It was like talking to a child. A child made up of equal parts mad hate and bleeding-edge cybernetics.

"_Fear_?" the grating had a questioning edge to it, and the Merlin took a slow, liquid step closer.

"Why are you disobeying orders, Lancelot?" she demanded, stilling herself and speaking more loudly. Where were the security troops? She would have looked over her shoulder for them, if she wasn't terrified of pulling her gaze away from the Merlin's blank mask.

"You. _Understand_." The creature paused, head cocking slightly in the opposite direction. The pressure of its gaze shifted, directed over her shoulder, and Dupree released a breath she didn't know she was holding. "_Know_."

And Dupree did indeed understand what it wanted.

"Yes, I do," Dupree said, forcing strength into her words and resisting the urge to step back away from the Merlin. "You are not permitted to be this close to Empath-One-Three-Seven."

"_**Her**_!" the sharp hiss of that tone make her jerk, and both of the Merlin's hands closed into fists so tight that she could hear the cables within the gloves creaking. "Name. **Tam**."

"Yes, she did," Dupree said with a nod. "She had a name. Not anymore."

A flicker, swift as an eyeblink, and it stood within arm's reach of her. Dupree jerked back in shock at Lancelot's sheer speed, and took two more steps away from it as she realized how close it was. Her heart slammed up into her chest.

A low rumbling came from the Merlin, and after several moments it finally spoke.

"I will. **Kill**. _Hurt_. Her. For _smiling_."

Dupree took another step back at what was almost a complete sentence on Lancelot's part. The Merlin was acting too much on its own. Thinking too much. And a thinking Merlin in close quarters was a nightmare few would want to contemplate.

"Return to your patrol, Lancelot," she ordered. It stared back at her, and another molasses-slow step began. Dupree watched that movement, and knew that if the lunatic brain inside the Merlin had another bout of madness-driven self-control, the damage could be terrible. If it got into the interrogation room . . . .

She pulled out her phone and stepped into the killing machine's path, and could distantly hear a couple of guards running toward them, finally alerted to the danger. Lancelot slowed to a halt as she blocked its path, and she dialed Onstintz's communicator.

"Carol?" he asked a moment later.

"Will?" she asked, staring into the Merlin's eyes, or where she guessed the eyes were. "Lancelot is outside. Can you call off your dog?"

Several seconds passed, in which the Merlin simply stared at her, unmoving. The guards stopped a few meters away, weapons shouldered; they had some idea of what the Merlin could do, but not enough. If they did they would be a lot farther away. Lancelot didn't react to them at all.

The Merlin abruptly stood straight, jerking out of a fighting crouch she hadn't realized it stood in. The blank facemask stared at her for a moment, and then it pivoted in pace with the same liquid slowness and started walking away with long, smooth, purposeful strides.

Dupree did not take her eyes off the killing machine until it turned down the corridor and was out of sight.

* * *

_Twenty-One Days Ago_

The low, distant rumble of laboring engines ran through the deck beneath his feet. He knelt on the carpet in his quarters, letting the familiar, steady noise and vibration soothe his thoughts. Use of engines to help strengthen meditation was an established practice, though one needed a well-maintained ship to manage it reliably. But his personal ship was among the most well-maintained in the 'Verse, and within his small, austere quarters, the man who had named himself Nemo found stillness and clarity. In the calm, focused, relaxed state of mind, he could escape from the countless weights borne of a planned insurgency and system-wide insurrection,

And more importantly, he could escape from the crushing pressure of his own conscience. It was not easy to live with the knowledge that all of the horrors he had inflicted on the world were done in the name of a lie. Meditation had helped to silence the screams while he had been an Operative, and now it helped silence his own guilt - for a time, at least.

Helping the idealistic fools who still wanted to fight was part of his atonement, but there wasn't much hope, really. Not yet; they were but a candle flickering in the wind. But he had seen a candle set a great conflagration before; Malcolm Reynolds proved that even the weak could be mighty, and achieve the impossible if they stood with strength and fought with intelligence.

It was in this state of peace and clarity that a low beeping sound cut across his perceptions, and he opened his eyes. He glanced across his small cabin to the terminal, and rose with careful, deliberate motions. It was set to only alert him of extremely high-priority messages from a small number of contacts; everything else could wait until after he was finished meditating.

His hands flicked over the interface, bringing up the message in question, and his eyes widened a fraction of a centimeter. It was a short, simple text message, but he source was the last thing he had expected, but foremost in his hopes.

**I have reconsidered your proposal. Meet me at this location alone.**

The rest of the message was a set of landing coordinates on the dusty moon where she had crashed.

Nemo started to compose a reply, and found a small smile forming on his face.

The weak candle burned just a bit brighter now.

* * *

_Present_

"How did you learn of this?" Ornstintz asked, putting away his phone. He didn't let the worry he'd felt at Lancelot's actions show. He'd deal with that later. One-Three-Seven didn't answer his question, instead simply glaring at him with that hateful madness. He suspected she didn't even know how close the Merlin had come.

"It's not like it helps you, really," he added. "You don't have the equipment to remove it."

"Death solves the equation," she hissed. Blood dribbled down her wrists where she kept pulling at the restraints.

"You're too useful to allow to die, One-Three-Seven," Ornstintz said. He leaned back in his chair, and shook his head. "You've already tried suicide once before, and that didn't work out too well, did it? Besides, you still have one weakness. And fortunately for your family, I'm not a liar."

She snorted, a rueful laugh, and he shrugged.

"Oh, well, you got me there. But I'm telling the truth," he continued. "With you in our possession, we have no further reason to hunt Reynolds and his crew. They're safe now, so long as you cooperate."

"Skeptical," she muttered. He shrugged.

"I have no reason to lie about it," he replied. "So long as you play by the rules and do as we say, we will never touch your family again." His smile grew. "You're not getting out of here, except in a box with enough drugs in you to keep you asleep for months. You know what's easiest for everyone. Just be a good girl."

He saw the wheels whirl in her head at relativistic speed. Emotions flickered across her features - anger, despair, pain, hope. One-Three-Seven was considering the pros and cons of cooperation, and he could tell as he watched her that she was coming to the same conclusion over and over. There was only one end that would result in the best possible outcome. And after several moments of furious internal debate, he saw her yield to the truth.

River Tam slumped in her chair and nodded. She took a slow breath, angry and exhausted, and spoke.

"Agreed," she spat, the word like acid.

"Good," he said with a smile. He didn't hide the victory in his voice; she could see it plain as day. It was over. One-Three-Seven had surrendered.

The door slid open, and Ornstintz looked up. Dupree walked in, anxiety in her gait. No surprise there, considering she'd just been staring down Lancelot. She exhaled in relief as the door locked behind her.

"You fine, Carol?" he asked, and the doctor nodded. She glanced to the slumped girl.

"While you were out," Ornstintz said, unable to hide the smug satisfaction he was feeling, "our subject here finally realized cooperation was preferable."

"I see," Dupree said, and coughed. "That is excellent, I would say."

"Now, One-Three-Seven," Ornstintz said, turning back to the girl. "I still have questions to ask."

He was about to speak again when Dupree coughed once more, this time louder. He glanced at her in annoyance for the interruption, and turned back toward the girl. As he did so, he heard a sudden but curious sound: both of the agents flanking him shifting in place, as if on alert.

When his eyes reached River, he saw why. She was suddenly sitting up straight, and the girl was staring back at him with rapt attention.

Then she started giggling.

He blinked in surprise as she shook in her chair, smiling, and bowed her head, laughing quietly.

"What the hell is so funny?" he demanded after a moment, and she slowed down. After a moment, she raised her head again, exhaled, and smiled.

"Because," she murmured, eyes suddenly bright and alert. He saw something in them that startled him.

Absolute lucidity. Not the flickers he'd seen when she'd bitten him, or the angry desperation a moment ago as before she surrendered. There was absolute clarity in that smile.

"Two reasons," River said, and pushed herself back into her chair. "You have made multiple assumptions, based on fallacious reasoning, which I find hilarious."

He stared back at her, expression blank and confused. What the hell was going on? She'd just-

"First," River said, her smile fading. "You think I am still an emotional wreck. You believe that I am unstable, ineffective, defeated. That is a reasonable but terribly erroneous assumption. I am functional."

In the silence that followed that odd statement, Ornstintz heard something. A faint click, like a clasp releasing. He looked up, head snapping toward Dupree. It sounded like it came from her medical bag. She raised an eyebrow at his expression.

"The second fact," River whispered, and he looked back to her, "is that you assume physically restraining me will keep you safe. You should know better by now that restraints are irrelevant."

The smile vanished. She sat at ease, her eyes impossibly sane, her hands loose and relaxed in their restraints. The rage was still there, but tempered by something.

Anticipation.

Then the room went pitch-black as the lights died, and the backups did not kick in.

"Because I can kill you _with my brain_."

* * *

...

* * *

_**Author's Notes: **_This is where the asskicking begins.

Until next chapter . . . . .


End file.
